The Anarchy
The Anarchy accounts one of history’s most remarkable stories: how the East India Company took over large swaths of Asia, and the catastrophic results of the corporation running a country. This is a narrative of how the Mughal Empire, which dominated world trade and manufacturing, was overthrown by a multinational corporation based long way off overseas. The creation of this new government marked something much more unusual: the transformation of East India Company into an aggressive colonial power. Using pristine sources, The Anarchy delicately tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before and paints a clear picture of the devastating consequences of the abuse of corporate power.
A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2019
"Superb. . . a vivid and richly detailed story . . . the greatest virtue of this disturbingly enjoyable book is perhaps less the questions it answers than the new ones it provokes about where corporations fit into the world, both then and now. . . Dalrymple’s book [is] worth reading by everyone."
— The New York Times Book Review
"As William Dalrymple shows in his rampaging, brilliant, passionate history, 'The Anarchy,' the East India Co. was the most advanced capitalist organization in the world . . . Mr. 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. 'The Anarchy' is not simply a gripping tale of bloodshed and deceit, of unimaginable opulence and intolerable starvation. It is shot through with an unappeasable moral passion."
— The Wall Street Journal
"An enlightening and entertaining tour of the history of the British East India Company."
— New York Journal of Books
"A great story told in fabulous detail with interesting, if at times utterly rapacious or incompetent, characters populating it."
— NPR's Book Concierge
"[An] expert account of the rise of the first great multinational corporation."
— Kirkus Reviews
"Splendid . . . Dalrymple’s book is an excellent example of popular history―engaging, readable, and informative."
— National Review
"It is difficult to read The Anarchy, published in the United States on Sept. 10, without being struck by how timely it feels, how surprisingly of the moment. An epic of 576 pages in all, it serves as a reminder that early capitalism was just as perverse, predatory, and single-minded in its pursuit of profit as its much-derided late-model equivalent."
— The Daily Beast
"Dalrymple is a marvelous storyteller. . . . He creates a ‘you are there’ environment for the reader that makes the book hard to put down."
— Washington Independent Review of Books
"William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy makes sense of the E.I.C. and the political and economic conditions that enabled its curious ascent. . . [Dalrymple] navigates the teeming current of events smoothly, here gliding forward, there slowing to study the view."
— Airmail
"In his latest book, The Anarchy, Dalrymple recounts the remarkable history of the East India Company from its founding in 1599 to 1803 when it commanded an army twice the size of the British Army and ruled over the Indian subcontinent. . . . It’s a hell of a story."
— Marginal Revolution
"Mr. Dalrymple sails through this story in fine style. . . . The reader will find plenty that echoes in modern India."
"The author is a marvelous storyteller. By quoting extensively from the company’s own voluminous records, private letters, and diaries, Persian-language sources, eyewitness accounts penned by an insightful local historian, and other reports, Dalrymple creates a ‘You Are There’ environment for the reader that makes the book hard to put down."
— Washington Independent Review of Books, Favorite Books of 2019