Illuminates how new modes of artistic production in colonial India shaped the British state's nationalisation of the East India Company, transforming the relationship between nation and empire This pioneering book explores how art shaped the nationalisation of the East India Company between the loss of its primary monopoly in 1813 and its ultimate liquidation in 1858. Challenging the idea that parliament drove political reform, it argues instead that the Company's political legitimacy was destabilised by novel modes of artistic production in colonial India. New artistic forms and practices--the result of new technologies like lithography and steam navigation, middle-class print formats like the periodical, the scrapbook and the literary annual, as well as the prevalence of amateur sketching among Company employees--reconfigured the colonial regime's racial boundaries and techniques of governance. They flourished within transimperial networks, integrating middle-class societies with new political convictions and moral disciplines, and thereby eroding the aristocratic corporate cultures that had previously structured colonial authority in India. Unmaking the East India Company contributes to a reassessment of British art as a global, corporate and intrinsically imperial phenomenon--highlighting the role of overlooked media, artistic styles and print formats in crafting those distinctions of power and identity that defined 'Britishness' across the world. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

From the critically acclaimed author of "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire" comes an unapologetic revisionist history of British rule in India. James recounts the twists and turns of imperialism and independence with a wealth of new material. 8-page photo insert.

In The Making and Unmaking of Empires P. J. Marshall, distinguished author of numerous books on the British Empire and former Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, provides a unified interpretation of British imperial history in the later eighteenth century. He brings together into a commonfocus Britain's loss of empire in North America and the winning of territorial dominion in parts of India and argues that these developments were part of a single phase of Britain's imperial history, rather than marking the closing of a 'first' Atlantic empire and the rise of a 'second' eastern one.In both India and North America Britain pursued similar objectives in this period. Fearful of the apparent enmity of France, Britain sought to secure the interests overseas which were thought to contribute so much to her wealth and power. This involved imposing a greater degree of control overcolonies in America and over the East India Company and its new possessions in India. Aspirations to greater control also reflected an increasing confidence in Britain's capacity to regulate the affairs of subject peoples, especially through parliament.If British objectives throughout the world were generally similar, whether they could be achieved depended on the support or at least acquiescence of those they tried to rule. Much of this book is concerned with bringing together the findings of the rich historical writing on both post-Mughal Indiaand late colonial America to assess the strengths and weaknesses of empire in different parts of the world. In North America potential allies who were closely linked to Britain in beliefs, culture and economic interest were ultimately alienated by Britain's political pretensions. Empire wasextremely fragile in two out of the three main Indian settlements. In Bengal, however, the British achieved a modus vivendi with important groups which enabled them to build a secure base for the future subjugation of the subcontinent.With the authority of one who has made the study of empire his life's work, Marshall provides a valuable resource for scholar and student alike.

In existence for 258 years, the English East India Company ran a complex, highly integrated global trading network. It supplied the tea for the Boston Tea Party, the cotton textiles used to purchase slaves in Africa, and the opium for China’s nineteenth-century addiction. In India it expanded from a few small coastal settlements to govern territories that far exceeded the British Isles in extent and population. It minted coins in its name, established law courts and prisons, and prosecuted wars with one of the world’s largest armies. Over time, the Company developed a pronounced and aggressive colonialism that laid the foundation for Britain’s Eastern empire. A study of the Company, therefore, is a study of the rise of the modern world. In clear, engaging prose, Ian Barrow sets the rise and fall of the Company into political, economic, and cultural contexts and explains how and why the Company was transformed from a maritime trading entity into a territorial colonial state. Excerpts from eighteen primary documents illustrate the main themes and ideas discussed in the text. Maps, illustrations, a glossary, and a chronology are also included.

★ The East India Company ★Founded at the dawn of the seventeenth century as European nations were establishing global empires, the English East India Company would become a vital part of burgeoning British supremacy. Begun as a joint-stock company for trade with the East Indies, this organization would evolve into one of the world's first capitalistic corporations. Inside you will read about...✓ The English in the Atlantic Era and the Founding of the East India Company ✓ The 17th Century: Struggling, Building, and Growing with Violence ✓ The East India Company Enters the 18th Century ✓ The British Government Steps In ✓ China and the Opium Trade ✓ Growing British Involvement in the 19th Century ✓ The End of the East India Company And much more! Over the course of their 250+ years, the East India Company had built a global trading empire, raised an army and waged war, and conquered vast territory, including the entire subcontinent of India. Without their involvement, the British presence in India would look very different in the historical record. Though the company was dissolved by 1874, their influence on world history cannot be overstated. Series Information: The East India Companies Book 1

A collection of essays on the history and relationships of the East India Company from 1600 to the early 1800s.