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The Anarchy

The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

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The Anarchy

Written by: William Dalrymple
Narrated by: Sid Sagar
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Buy Now for ₹667.71

Buy Now for ₹667.71

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 18th Century Asia Colonialism & Post-Colonialism Europe Great Britain India Military Modern Politics & Government South Asia Wars & Conflicts
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Critic Reviews

An energetic pageturner that marches from the counting house on to the battlefield, exploding patriotic myths along the way (Maya Jasanoff)
A tour de force ***** (Anne de Courcy)
Magnificent … The Anarchy explodes myths that have accreted around the history of the Company like barnacles on the hulls of its ships ... Dalrymple shines a forensic light on the knotty historical relationship between commercial and imperial power (John McAleer)
Dalrymple has been at the forefront of the new wave of popular history, consistently producing work that engages with a wider audience through writerly craft, an emphasis on characters and their agency, evocative description of place and time, and the inclusion of long-neglected perspectives … The book’s real achievement is to take readers to an important and neglected period of British and south Asian history, and to make their trip their not just informative but colourful (Jason Burke)
Gloriously opulent … India is a sumptuous place. Telling its story properly demands lush language, not to mention sensitivity towards the country’s passionate complexity. Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India … A book of beauty (Gerard DeGroot)
It is well-trodden territory but Dalrymple ... brings to it erudition, deep insight and an entertaining style
Combining extensive research, judicious analysis and an acceptable level of outrage, Dalrymple’s compelling account will cement his status as the most widely read British writer on India since Kipling … A brave and stirring narrative of India’s eighteenth-century fragmentation (John Keay)
[A] rampaging, brilliant, passionate history … Dalrymple gives us every sword-slash, every scam, every groan and battle cry. He has no rival as a narrative historian of the British in India … A gripping tale of bloodshed and deceit, of unimaginable opulence and intolerable starvation ... shot through with an unappeasable moral passion
‘Masterful … Dalrymple has been for some years one of the most eloquent and assiduous chroniclers of Indian history. With this new work, he sounds a minatory note … Dalrymple has done a great service in not just writing an eminently readable history of eighteenth-century India, but in reflecting on how so much of it serves as a warning for our own time’ (Stuart Kelly)
A magnificently readable book, deeply researched and richly atmospheric, written with a historian’s understanding of power and a novelistic eye for detail ***** (Francis Wheen)
A rip-roaring tale of wild adventure, amorality, feckless greed and despicable behaviour … His best history to date (Louise Nicholson)
[Dalrymple] is a terrifically good storyteller. He makes the reader see how events unfold and observe the personalities up close. He is widely read both in the primary sources and the historical scholarship. As a result, The Anarchy is one of the best books on Indian history published in a long time
All stars
Most relevant
William Dalrymple delivers yet again. His ability to weave sub plots together and bring history alive remains unequalled.

A very important book for every Indian who thinks that the British were the best thing to happen to India.

Powerful, evocative, unsettling - do give it a listen

Sid Sagar, who delivers it to us should have acquainted himself with Indian names before embarking on this project. The pathetic rendition of the names is the biggest blemish of the audio book.

A brilliant book covering a massive canvas

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William Darlymple has done absolute justice to the topic of the book by not getting into taking to popular narratives and presented a well researched factual account, so it seems and so I believe from the style and coverage of the contents. This is a good read especially after plethora of Books written to eulogize Brit occupation of India and underplaying the brutal sufferings inflected upon Indian populace, leaders, kings and freedom fighters. it also presents in an absorbing manner the wealth, strength and weaknesses of very many indian kings of those times from Moghuls to Marathas to Afghans and from south to north and east to west. This Book also creates a perceived impression that British Government wasn't responsible for the loot of India rather a corporation called EIC... but it fails to capture the imagination of Indians who firmly believe today that British Government played hands in gloves with EIC in looting India and enriching Britain and that at least in public Britain must apologise if not return the proceeds of loot. voice is good, narrative is excellent, coverage is interesting. a worth read.

A must reads for one keen in Indian modern history

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Loved it. Wish it would have another chapter from 1806 to 1857 and also cover First War of Independence.

Brief insights into East India Company

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The Anarchy

By William Dalrymple
==========
If there is one book that completely destroys all the notions that you had formed about our Colonial history aided by the "history" taught in our schools, is The Anarchy.
The Anarchy outlines the story of rise of The East India Company in India from 1700 to 1799. And what a colorful story it is.

If you subscribe to the agendas of one party or the other, you will always be blinded to the truth.
Nothing in our history was absolute black and white. Every King, banker, governer, emperor worked in the interest of their self gain, and that includes Hindus, Muslims, Marathas, Bengalis, Mughals.
Ultimately it was the worker class, the common people who suffered through epidemics and drought and struggled for a morsel of food.
And we still haven't learnt anything.

Brilliant!

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I love William Dalrymple and I also love the narrator brilliant work brilliant insightful so well researched

Great

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