The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833

Description

The Business of Empire assesses the domestic impact of British imperial expansion by analysing what happened in Britain following the East India Company's acquisition of a vast territorial empire in South Asia. Drawing on a mass of hitherto unused material contained in the Company's administrative and financial records, the book offers a reconstruction of the inner workings of the Company as it made the remarkable transition from business to empire during the late-eighteenth century. H. V. Bowen profiles the company's stockholders and directors and examines how those in London adapted their methods, working practices, and policies to changing circumstances in India. He also explores the Company's multifarious interactions with the domestic economy and society, and sheds important new light on its substantial contributions to the development of Britain's imperial state, public finances, military strength, trade, and industry. This book will appeal to all those interested in imperial, economic and business history.

H. V. Bowen is Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester. His previous books include Elites, Enterprise, and the Making of the Briish Overseas Empire, 1688-1775 (1996); and War and British Society, 1688-1815 (1998).

From the hardback review: 'In many places he paints with a broad brush but, using the Company's ledgers, he does so with accuracy and an eye for detail that brings India and China, Britain and Europe, into the board room ... Bowen and Cambridge University Press are to be congratulated on producing a very important book.' History From the hardback review: 'This is a careful and thorough study of an important but often ignored aspect of the history of the East Indian phenomenon.' Contemporary Review From the hardback review: 'This is a remarkable feat of scholarship that will immediately become an indispensable guide to later history of the British East India Company ... Bowen's study provides a wealth of new information on many aspects of the company's operations in Britain in the century after the conquest of Bengal in 1756.' Times Higher Education Supplement From the hardback review: '... Bowen ... writes in a highly readable jargon-free style. One of the measures of his success in producing such a stimulating work,which will undoubtedly become a 'standard', is the way that reading him provokes so many thoughts of further research possibilities.' Asian Affairs