Digital List Price: | $15.50 |
Kindle Price: | $9.99 Save $5.51 (36%) |
Sold by: | Amazon.com Services LLC |
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The East India Company, 1600–1858: A Short History with Documents (Passages: Key Moments in History) Kindle Edition
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.
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.
- ISBN-13978-1624665967
- PublisherHackett Publishing Company, Inc.
- Publication dateFebruary 14, 2017
- LanguageEnglish
- File size3733 KB
Kindle E-Readers
Fire Tablets
Fire Phones
-
Next 3 for you in this series
$34.61 -
Next 5 for you in this series
$59.59 -
All 10 for you in this series
$120.05
Next 3 for you in this series
See full series
Next 5 for you in this series
See full series
All 10 for you in this series
See full series
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Ian Barrow has written a concise yet engaging, rich, and detailed history of the East India Company—its rise to power, evolution, and eventual demise. This book will be read with great interest by students as well as those general readers seeking a better knowledge of the world's first multi-national corporation and its important influence in the creation of the modern South Asian world."
—Michael Dodson, Indiana University Bloomington
"Ian Barrow's slim volume uses the East India Company (or, as he refers to it throughout the book, simply the 'Company') as a case study through which to examine Britain's colonial journey. From the Company’s inception in 1600 to its formal dissolution in 1874, its trajectory reflects England's expanding global trade to obtaining a foothold in foreign lands to its problematic role as a colonizing country, through the growing challenges to and eventual collapse of that colonial authority. It is a concise history, but works well at bringing those multiple threads into one story. . . . There are many resources in this volume that will be beneficial for students and nonspecialists. A chronology, glossary, and series of maps provide useful aids to understanding and visualizing new concepts in the readings. Barrow closes with a concise and easily comprehensible summation of how the Company's story is important as a case study of colonial rule and imperialism, and this will be one of the book's most valuable aspects for educators. It is a story that is easy to follow, even in its complexity, and incorporates economic, religious, ethnic, political, and military history throughout the narrative. Students should find various topics that will hold their interest in this very readable book."
—Michelle Damian, Monmouth College, in Education About Asia
"The book fills in a gap in scholarship on the English East India Company by providing a chronological guide to the Company's Indian activities. The East India Company serves as a reference for researchers starting their study of the English East India Company and as a source of information for students. Moreover, the selected primary sources provided at the end of the book represent an excellent entry into the study of the primary sources connected to contemporary English debates about the activities of the Company."
—Karolina Hutková, London School of Economics, in The Economic History Review
—Michael Dodson, Indiana University Bloomington
"Ian Barrow's slim volume uses the East India Company (or, as he refers to it throughout the book, simply the 'Company') as a case study through which to examine Britain's colonial journey. From the Company’s inception in 1600 to its formal dissolution in 1874, its trajectory reflects England's expanding global trade to obtaining a foothold in foreign lands to its problematic role as a colonizing country, through the growing challenges to and eventual collapse of that colonial authority. It is a concise history, but works well at bringing those multiple threads into one story. . . . There are many resources in this volume that will be beneficial for students and nonspecialists. A chronology, glossary, and series of maps provide useful aids to understanding and visualizing new concepts in the readings. Barrow closes with a concise and easily comprehensible summation of how the Company's story is important as a case study of colonial rule and imperialism, and this will be one of the book's most valuable aspects for educators. It is a story that is easy to follow, even in its complexity, and incorporates economic, religious, ethnic, political, and military history throughout the narrative. Students should find various topics that will hold their interest in this very readable book."
—Michelle Damian, Monmouth College, in Education About Asia
"The book fills in a gap in scholarship on the English East India Company by providing a chronological guide to the Company's Indian activities. The East India Company serves as a reference for researchers starting their study of the English East India Company and as a source of information for students. Moreover, the selected primary sources provided at the end of the book represent an excellent entry into the study of the primary sources connected to contemporary English debates about the activities of the Company."
—Karolina Hutková, London School of Economics, in The Economic History Review
About the Author
Ian Barrow is Professor of History, Middlebury College.
Product details
- ASIN : B06ZZ5T9F6
- Publisher : Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (February 14, 2017)
- Publication date : February 14, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 3733 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 208 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #239,998 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #49 in History of India
- #73 in International Business & Money
- #97 in India History
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
35 global ratings
How customer reviews and ratings work
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2017
a great book!
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017
Not very comprehensive. The author wrote what he wants you to read, but it was quiet different in actuality.
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2020
Mainly, this is a very workmanlike history of the East India Company. It meticulously charts the development of the company over 250 years, with detailed statistics of its dealings in silver, textiles, tea and opium and punctilious reporting of the relevant dates for all of the many individual actors that populate its pages. Given this, it is rather incongruous to find in the book’s introduction a diatribe against the colonialist character of the Company, the unrepresentative nature of its governance and the racist attitudes of its leaders and administrators. At various points in the book the author inserts short “racist” capsules, as if to remind us that he hasn’t forgotten. His comments lack the context or nuance of writers such as David Gilmour or William Dalrymple who write objectively about the racial attitudes and behavior of the British in India without any anachronistic moralizing. They also ignore the fact that caste-ridden Indian society was essentially racist; Gandhi himself remarked “It is ourselves who have taught them untouchability.”
What the author's account does show is how the East India Company, its policies and practices, and the men who directed and influenced it were all a perfect reflection of their times. The Company - and the British state which eventually took over its mantle -progressed from mercantilism and exploitation, through conquest and empire-building to paternalistic concern for the betterment - according to its own definition of such - of the people over which it ruled. In the 19th century, with what the author can't resist referring to as a "deepening racism", the creation of the infrastructure of a modern state in India by the British enabled the emergence of an Indian nationalism which came to fruition at the time when Britain was dismantling its empire in the mid 20th century.
What then is the point of all the anti-racist moralizing? Where or when in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries would you find a more enlightened – or perhaps “woke” - colonial enterprise, compared with which the East India Company measures up so badly? Why does the author feel the need for these ritual denunciations? Would he be equally moved to condemn the abuse of human rights in a history of Genghis Khan or the anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, or the deplorable treatment of women by Henry VIII?
As the author is a professor of History at Middlebury College, regrettably the answers to these questions may well be in the affirmative. Middlebury was the college where in 2017 the student body not only tried to disinvite Charles Murray, respected and highly respectable author of “the Bell Curve”, but physically attacked him and a university professor by whom he had been interviewed, so violently that the latter required physical therapy for the next 6 months. In the “call-out” culture that pervades schools like Middlebury – and many others – professors not only have to cover their behinds in class; they have to impose the same intelligence-insulting regime on the wider public who might read their published work. Stand up Professor Barrow. You are a good historian. Don’t diminish yourself.
What the author's account does show is how the East India Company, its policies and practices, and the men who directed and influenced it were all a perfect reflection of their times. The Company - and the British state which eventually took over its mantle -progressed from mercantilism and exploitation, through conquest and empire-building to paternalistic concern for the betterment - according to its own definition of such - of the people over which it ruled. In the 19th century, with what the author can't resist referring to as a "deepening racism", the creation of the infrastructure of a modern state in India by the British enabled the emergence of an Indian nationalism which came to fruition at the time when Britain was dismantling its empire in the mid 20th century.
What then is the point of all the anti-racist moralizing? Where or when in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries would you find a more enlightened – or perhaps “woke” - colonial enterprise, compared with which the East India Company measures up so badly? Why does the author feel the need for these ritual denunciations? Would he be equally moved to condemn the abuse of human rights in a history of Genghis Khan or the anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, or the deplorable treatment of women by Henry VIII?
As the author is a professor of History at Middlebury College, regrettably the answers to these questions may well be in the affirmative. Middlebury was the college where in 2017 the student body not only tried to disinvite Charles Murray, respected and highly respectable author of “the Bell Curve”, but physically attacked him and a university professor by whom he had been interviewed, so violently that the latter required physical therapy for the next 6 months. In the “call-out” culture that pervades schools like Middlebury – and many others – professors not only have to cover their behinds in class; they have to impose the same intelligence-insulting regime on the wider public who might read their published work. Stand up Professor Barrow. You are a good historian. Don’t diminish yourself.
Top reviews from other countries
Arif R
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ian Barrow is not only a good historian, but also a good author
Reviewed in Canada on April 23, 2018
This book is logically structured, thoroughly researched, academically written, and fully referenced. Although it's a short history with documents, as the title indicates, it is profoundly written; coherently covering 258 years of Company's history with key historic events using both British and Indian sources. It also shows the points of view of other historians about certain events or the Company as a whole during its 258 years of operation. Ian Barrow is not only a good historian, but also a good author. He is unbiased, impartial, factual, and extremely knowledgeable. The Documents Section at the end of the book is basically a condensed library of passages highlighting key historic moments, perspectives, opinions, socioeconomic dynamics and politics of the time.
filip_singapore
4.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of facts, less thoughts on vision and strategy of the leaders
Reviewed in Singapore on July 10, 2021
The narrative focuses too much on listening facts of what was happening in India but does not provide much detail on vision, strategy and governance of EIC in England