Books On British Empire

William Dalrymple on writing The Anarchy, his history of the East India Company's conquest of the subcontinent

Through William Dalrymple’s enjoyable history of the East India Company, a study in contrasts emerges: the juxtaposition of the Company’s rise in India with the Mughal empire’s collapse, the personalities of the emperor Shah Alam and Robert Clive, and quite importantly, the perception of the ‘Raj’ in India versus the reality of a corporate, profit-driven enterprise being at the helm.