The Anarchy: A New Book by William Dalrymple

NEW YORK, September 18, 2019 - In The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, historian William Dalrymple tells a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power. From the defeat and capture of the Mughal emperor to the fall of Delhi, The Anarchy details how an entire subcontinent fell under the jurisdiction of a private enterprise, answerable only to its shareholders and administered from a boardroom thousands of miles away. (59 min., 51 sec.)

[@suparnachatterjee3627]

I am reading this book now. I really get amazed at the sheer amount of hard work that has gone into making this book a reality. William Dalrymple is simply WOW!.

[@explorerelka]

We had a History Teacher who taught us History like this! No wonder it was to be my favourite school subject.

[@sattarabus]

William Dalrymple deserves a premium brand of Scotch named after him as a tribute to his extraordinary appeal as a historian, presenter, and raconteur. In spite of painstaking research, he writes with such ease and legibility you start re- reading his book as soon as you have finished it.

[@aikishugyo]

Indeed. I was intimidated by White Mughals because of the small type and tons of footnotes, then after months when I finally built up enough courage to start delving into it I could not stop. He just kind of sucks you in! It is a mixture of morbid fascination, intrigue, horror, historical curiosity, eye-opening revelations, disappointment and elation all at the same time.

[@michelrectangulo234]

Historian or novelist??

[@MrRaviJohar]

The fact that thriving Indian bankers were an integral part of the East India Company's dominance and destruction of India is a point for great caution. The nexus between the moneyed classes and rulers has always been a symbiotic one and one suspects it still is so in Modern India. Calls for a great degree of vigilance by people even a modern ans (apparently) democratic setup.

[@majigaining]

Ravindra Johar there was no ‘India’ to dominate and destroy back then. At least the concept of ‘India’ as we understood by us today. India was given to us by the so called ‘Britishers’

[@mrigoo]

Well mughal s and tipu both had no problem allying with eic when it suited them so calling out sethis or others is just wrong. What EIC s invasion showed was that the mughal elites treated also india like a colony

[@trunkschillman]

I am a banker and I approve of your words. We indeed eat sleep think profits. And if the chance arrives we indeed could go unimaginable distances and stoop unfathomable depths.

[@trunkschillman]

You have spoken wise words. Business is ruthless. It's all about survival of the fittest and a continuous struggle to excel above all. And in that process if we as bankers be able to extract maximum benefits from the people of this country we will. Personally I am against any exploitation of the destitute but if its about business then we won't think twice before exploiting. I have seen and felt the true nature of Indian businessmen. Seen their greed and tendencies to cheat. They don't deserve any mercy or consideration. They are the lowliest beings on Earth.

[@dargay386]

I am reading this book now. Its good and I recommend it for people who are interested in how/why the EIC took over India.

[@syedkashifpeerzade8952]

Few views fewer likes and even fewer comments... The intellectual capacities of people are amply indicated. Am a fan of this man....

[@abdalmusavir]

true ..

[@Yo-ty1mz]

There's no pop culture references.

[@stillwatersnightsky6533]

Your comment - Succinct and a true observation

[@IT-js2kq]

Very true

[@dargay386]

Agreed, few people read books, esp in this social media/sensationalism age.

[@dicko7059]

Just bought this most incredible book whilst in India 🇮🇳 .....this isn’t a story..... it’s an incredible journey, couldn’t put it down... 500+ pages of the most incredibly detailed history from the get-go on how on earth did Great Britain ever colonise India .... this journey falls it all into place, the author’s detailed long hard work pays off, simply brilliant .... now all I’m doing is you tubing , web crawling to put faces, places people into the names of this superb book. and now to see the author live here is pure joy..... a MUST READ. Mike Melbourne 🇦🇺🦘

[@michelrectangulo234]

It’s fiction though!

[@trailingarm63]

Fantastic lecture and how contemporary the issues are today! William Dalrymple has amassed an amazing body of work which has accidentally turned him into an authority on globalisation.

[@riyadougla539]

Brilliant book that I could not put down. William describes perfectly how the British took India.

[@kumarnarayana5105]

finished reading the fascinating book, my 6th WD book. as with all his books, stopped looking up maps, random you-tube videos, visuals of infantry formations etc. never get enough of this man. planning to visit srirangapattanam next.

[@DasnarkyRemarky]

WIlliam Dalrymple is a brilliant historian and storyteller. I'm definitely reading this one along with Tharoor's era of darkness. It's fascinating to me how a corporation and then a handful of Britishers managed to rule a large country of 200 million.

[@michelrectangulo234]

Are you a relation. He is a novelist - his history is poorly sourced junk!

[@DasnarkyRemarky]

I’ve been a huge fan of Mr. Dalrymple’s work since I read city of djinns way back in high school and I’m really looking forward to getting this one

[@samreenfatima2551]

I see Mr Dalrymple, I click like. 😘

[@Cotswolds1913]

Its' important to remember the definition of a state when considering just what the EIC really is. Yes it starts out as a private company and is ostensibly still corporate-managed throughout, but it is also effectively and quite literally, a state. Powers of taxation, monopoly power in a given territorial area over the initiation of violent force, etc.

[@Arunjeet_Singh]

Wish I could narrate history like that and hold the audience spell bound.

[@DT-eg4ip]

He has an accuracy. At 54.00 he says Jagat Seth descendants financed the company but it is wrong..they were eliminated by Mir Qasim as he had realized the Seths were snakes.

[@timroth1984]

The Anarchy, is a really good book.

[@ImranAli-qj4ir]

How this writer ever came to be regarded as a Foreign agent who doesnt have the best interest of India is mind boggling to me .They call him leftist and Mughal apologist and what not just because he truthfully wrote about our history.

[@sentinel9293]

Even today, i.e. 400 years after, average British doesn't know how to use spices. So was it really about Spice trade as it was taught to us in books 🙏

[@Rajj854]

Imran Ali in the kingdom of fools, it is folly to be wise.

[@michelrectangulo234]

You are even more deluded than the novelist Dalrymple!

[@zer0875]

Simply wow!

[@s80key]

Thank you for a great talk.Going to buy the book now.

[@chowdhuryshahedakbar3052]

I am reading this book now. An astonishing narrative of an evil Corporation's relentless pluder and loot. For history book lovers, l suggest, it is good read.

[@ShashwatPanda]

Superb initial speech, even better follow-up interview. That I have bought the book and am half way through it as we speak is the cherry on the cake !

[@michelrectangulo234]

What a pity it is so poorly sourced and effectively a work of fiction!

[@RamPrasad-tb9sh]

Wonderful!

[@arghyakamalghosh]

Happy Birthday Mr. Dalrymple

[@fathimafarahna2633]

Loveeeeeee this historian. Currently reading this book

[@janeswan1124]

Has it reached the stores yet😃

[@sentinel9293]

Even today, i.e. 400 years after, average British doesn't know how to use spices. So was it really about Spice trade as it was taught to us in books 🙏

[@MilwJay]

Wow.

[@PastPresented]

11:50 "by simply capturing a Portuguese carrack" Except that the capture was the result of an alliance between the English company (after repeated trade failures) and the Dutch, who had ventured to the East Indies with a much more colonialist and militarist plan than the English

[@PastPresented]

30:35 onward: rather a chronological confusion between the growth of the Company's opium trade (about 1790 onward) and the Boston Tea Party (1773, relating to tea purchased in China with cash)

[@maserxp]

Lovely!

[@Manivannans]

The interview is opening up the dark side of Indians. Many more things may be yet to come. God only knows.

[@narjitmankoo8478]

What an absolutely informative talk , i will definitely be buying the book

[@sgirishrao]

Amazing...

[@maximiliansimmelbauer1721]

I´m going to write my master thesis about the EIC. Which books/sources can you further recommend to me. Thanks in advance!

[@michaelsweeney8229]

I would precede the litany of Mosaddegh, United Fruit and Allende with a mention of La Decena Trágica 1913.

[@PastPresented]

54:26 "the difference ... between 1780 and 1803 ... particularly the finances" It needs to be stressed, I think, that that was not a sudden development. The presence of main bases of the East India Company (even more than those of other European companies), from the mid-17th century onward, turned villages into cities within a single lifetime, because Indian entrepreneurs and financiers knew they could work with the EIC on a stable basis.

[@brucevilla]

Thanks for Uploading.

[@ram2ravanan987]

Time 20 minutes .he describes about battle between Madras seopys vs mugal army in 1742 .I couldn't catch the place name and battle details.if some know please provide more details about the fight

[@KlajniKleiner]

ultra fantastic

[@DipakBose-bq1vv]

Warren Hastings established 1800 the Fort William College, where my ancestor Ramram Basu was appointed the Professor in Bengali. He was well known as the Munshi of William Carey. Hastings also established the Asiatic Society in Calcutta.

[@PastPresented]

28:10 "they do what corporations do anywhere; they asset strip" Did they? Or did individual Company officers, in cahoots with local bigwigs whose services were retained for years after Buxar, enrich themselves, to the despair of higher managers like Harry Verelst? [EDIT: That said, Verelst also despaired, as soon as he took office in Calcutta, of Clive's fiscally illiterate scheme for using Indian taxes to pay for Indian goods to be sent to Britain]

[@tstanmoysamanta]

He totally dust off the British head of state out of all Guilt and put all burden on small company ,like they didn't have any backing from British govt.From the first British govt and Queen was hand in gloves with East India Company and they wanted to capture India in any way.

[@KuldipSidhu-ro1wl]

Tanmoy Samanta it was company of merchants who exploited the English royalty itself to its limits.

[@shahomarahmed9452]

WATCH TO THE END!

[@nishant_ketu]

❤️

[@bearsagainstevil]

The east India company is quite inspirational in a slightly piratical way :0)

[@jacoballen2812]

👏👌

[@zulfhashimmi2040]

SUD was such a sick man no idea he is so extolled in our literature

[@highway5123]

26:44 East India Company run through Royal Charter, so it is laughable to suggest that The Royal had nothing to do with Load Clive's conquest. At least the British were vicarious liable.

[@dargay386]

its just a legal requirement to start a company. Doesnt mean the govt runs it.

[@sombanerjee7005]

Wonderful! Liked specially the last part of the interview that brings out the unpalatable truth that we as Indians are also equally culpable as collaborators in this greatest plunder of our country!

[@naresh4030]

Now I get to know you are Done of Indian literature

[@PastPresented]

3:30 "roughly about 42% of world GDP" Perhaps barely, after the collapse of the western Roman empire, but much lower in the Mughal period, and not even close by the mid-18th century.

[@Cotswolds1913]

Yea I thought the same when I heard that, 42% is far too high.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

East India Co. was not a multinational: it did however operate internationally i.e. outside British territory. It's directors were not drawn from any country other than Britain. Its shareholders almost surely were als oall British. It was chartered by Britain. It did not have strings of subsidiaries or joint ventures in dozens of countries. It simply wasn't an MNC. It also wasn't a TNC. It I keep hoping to get good insight from Asia Society and am consistently disappointed in that regard. Then they wonder why people troll?

[@roniquebreauxjordan1302]

I am reading the book now....grad. tax studies

[@DipakBose-bq1vv]

Reza Khan was the finance minister of Bengal in 1770 when the great famine took place in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa killing at least one-third of the people of the richest part of the Mughal Empire.

[@chrisgallagher7769]

Granting right of tax collection to a for profit corporate..that's the worst that could happen to any peopl6

[@sbybill3271]

Ironically the Indians need a British to tell the truth.... That's why the empire ruled

[@saddozaiproduction]

To call Aurangzeb a bigot is a sign of a bigot. The author Audrey also agrees. Besides Shiva and his son was long dead before Aurangzeb was to die.

[@indranidasgupta1511]

This talk incietes the urge to visit those Downtown Abbey palaces where such enourmous stuff of loots are dumped.. Are Brits really aware of thier looting past??

[@lisacook8235]

Are you aware that your history is a lie? Don't be offended - all history is bullshit: India's doesn't stink any worse than the others': Certainly it smells less than my country's (not Britain by the way: A certain former British colony which is not America or Australia or New Zealand. Hint: It gets colder here than any Indian can imagine. And it once belonged to France. Yeah. THAT one. The one whose crimes nearly brought about a holocaust averted only by the chances of wind and wave. If you don't know what I'm talking about you will...someday soon...the clock is winding down now) Mr. Dalrymple is just another Faust. The nations, led by America, long ago sold their souls to the Devil for falsified histories backed by forged documentation. To hide the truth of what they were and what they did. Did you never wonder at any of the things "history" asks you to believe? Is your sense of plausibility never outraged? Never hear that nagging voice at the back of your head saying "but that doesn't make any sense!" Ah but here's the thing: Some lies, no matter how outrageous, are easier to believe than the truth. It never occurs to us that "authority" figures like historians are lying to us, and we're easily motivated to believe the worst of our fellow man in cases where we have a strong psychological stake (like national amour-propre) in doing so. Oh, and a clarification...In case you know what the Game is....I speak nothing but plain English, knowing very well that I'm breaking the Law of Silence....No dictionary or translator required, my words mean exactly what they say

[@jansprat1726]

Its time for Reparations and return of stolen artifacts. It is estimated that UK stole $45 Trillion from India and that doesn't even include the stolen artifacts. Those artifacts have no value disconnected from the country of origin other than a grand display of theft.

[@PastPresented]

28:05 "masters of north India" except for the massive areas under the control of the Durrani empire and the Sikhs

[@PastPresented]

29:20 "this business model is spectacular" So spectacular that by 1772 the Company was in financial crisis, and had to be bailed out by the British government, in return for a degree of government control [EDIT: belatedly dealt with at 33:35]

[@PastPresented]

"20 years later ... the battle of Buxar" 1764 from 1757 is not 20 years ...

[@s3narasi]

Apparently i sense the colonialism in him even when he compares british raj vs east india he draws up saying one was ruthless no rules and only profit vs the other was some what under control. Jalian wallabagh was more merciless than the sepoy mutiny as it happened against a peaceful gathering vs a war

[@KuldipSidhu-ro1wl]

sundar narasimman jallianwala bag was instigated and staged by inside forces. These Arya Samaj/Congress forces took on British institutions and establishments in Amritsar and attacking and killing Britishers. This instigation was in the background of carnage of devotees. While instigators and their leaders disappeared somewhere Devotees were made the target.

[@DipakBose-bq1vv]

Sirajudullah, the Nawab of Bengal invaded the house of Jagat Seth and raped all women of the house. To take revenge Jagat Seth and his friend Artun Petreous, the Armenian businessman of Chinsurah and Calcutta, gave Rs. 2 lakhs to Robert Clive to bring soldiers from Madras. They also persuaded other Amirs of Sirajdullah to put Mir Jafar, the Commander in Chief, as the Nawab of Bengal instead of Sirajdullah. That was the reason in the Battle of Plassey no one fought against the British except two Hindus Mohanlal and Mir Madan.

[@miqsirajuddin5378]

70% of Bengal is Bangladesh and Sirajuddawla's and Mir Jafar's descendants are all there. A tiny mention of B'desh would have made sense.

[@Cotswolds1913]

Bengal should have remained one province, a part of India.

Rohinga people were brought to the arakan region of Burma by British in 1825 as slave to work in the plantation just like Indians were brought to Malaysia to work in the rubber plantation. Indians were brought to fiji to work in the Sugar plantation. Around 1860 a group of british bandit and sea pirates named British east india company found Oil in this same region. Those british bandits and robbers saw the natives in this region using black liquid for cooking and buring. This is one of the early source of Oil in the world. British bandits establish a company with the help of rohinga named ‘’ Syndicate of british east india Company’’ in 1865 with head quarter in Chittogong sadarghat area( Padma Oil company present day bangladesh is the ancestor of these). In 1870 The name changed to ‘’Rangoon Oil company’’. Later in 1886 Name again changed to ‘’Burmah Oil company’’. This burmah oil company used these Rohinga slaves to further expand oil business in south and south east asia. The burmah Oil Company was also the Mother company of ‘’ The Anglo_Iranian Oil company in 1901 in Iran. This Burmah oil company was renamed again in 1980 as “ British Petroleum”( BP) for short. BP is the Seven sisters of the world along with Exxon, Texaco, Shell,Chevron, Mobil, Gulf Oil. British Further used the rohingas as a canon fodder against Japanese in 1942 during WW2. The whole Rohinga Crisis was Created By the British . So the responsibility of the Rohingas should be with the British Government who enslaved them at First place.

[@fdfdfdfdffjkhgjkgffhsfgkkf4564]

Bloody English