The Anarchy

The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

By: William Dalrymple

Narrated by: Sid Sagar

Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar.

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019
A FINANCIAL TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY TELEGRAPH, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India … A book of beauty’ – Gerard DeGroot, The Times

In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself from an international trading corporation into something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.

William Dalrymple tells the remarkable story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.

©2019 William Dalrymple (P)2019 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Average book about the East India company

Nothing spectacular or already been written. Poor performance by narrator. Indian names have been butchered by the narrator, would’ve excused it had it not been a book focused on India. Average story and average performance

it was good

I said above, it was good. but apparently they need more than 15 words so.. here it is.

Enlightening

A very good history of the EIC. I had nonidea of the extent of its power and ambition

Saddening story of India a leading economy becoming a colony

The Anarchy is a well-balanced account of how in just half a century a leading economy of the time turned into a poor and starving colony. Astonishing fact described here is that the transformation happened over a few decades without any specific grand imperial plan. It was a multinational corporation that was creating the harm and the unfortunate and visionless nawabs and rajas who became its pawns. In the end over 100 million people suffered and several of them lost their lives as a result of heartless administration that let it’s subject die in a severe famine. The same opportunistic MNC administration used the profits generated in good times to conquer more territory. Victims were more numerous than the holocaust victims in the story. Today’s world needs to know about this terrible time in the Indian history so that we avoid this in the future.

Very informative & enjoyable slices into 18th century Mughal history

This was an excellent listen overall. -2 stars for eg performance because the “Indian-leaning” narrator for the Indian words, was absolutely awful. His pronunciation was alien and he clearly did not know these words. I thought Audible could’ve easily done better finding someone who actually knew what they were talking about.

Outstanding

I wanted the best book if I was only going to read one on this subject, did a bunch of googling, chose this one, and glad I did.

The nature of greed mingled with power

Great job on the history of India. Eye opening. I realized that the interests of EAC were joined by English government and politicians. It boils down to human nature. Greed and corruption.

We are story tellers, all of us; this is amazing..

We are all story tellers and this is an amazing story; very deftly told. The narrator increases its impact by his emphatic rendition.

listen and enjoy people. This is good stuff ;)

Exceptionally well-told story of the EIC's rise

My only complaint is that it ended too soon. It goes through the fall of Delhi but I would have loved more of the story of ruling.
Regardless, this is a fascinating take story of the East India Company, particularly as a military power: not just of the battles but of the motivation and characters. It's largely a history of the rulers and leaders, with more emphasis on the British side, but still giving a lot of color to the Indian rulers.
Quite interestingly, this is not just a story of superior European war technology making easy going of local powers. There's a lot of tension in the story because it's often not clear who's going to win.... I mean, we know who wins, but it's not a straight line.

informative but overly reflective

the book was useful to learn about the early history of the EIC and its major conquests that led to it controlling most of India before that was taken over by the British crown. however, it was kind of annoying that almost every 5 minutes it repeated the conclusion "a large corporation did x,y,z which was unheard of before and after". it felt somewhat preachy from start to end.

this book was not as entertaining or engaging as other historical books on Euro-Asian politics of that time like "the great game" (which was an excellent book), and was dry at times. however it filled in a huge gap in my understanding of how the British came to control India, and introduced me to a lot of topics that I might read up on separately now.