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The Anarchy

The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

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The Anarchy

By: William Dalrymple
Narrated by: Sid Sagar
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About this listen

Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar.

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2019
A FINANCIAL TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY TELEGRAPH, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India … A book of beauty’ – Gerard DeGroot, The Times

In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself from an international trading corporation into something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.

William Dalrymple tells the remarkable story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.

©2019 William Dalrymple (P)2019 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 18th Century Asia Colonialism & Post-Colonialism India Military Modern Politics & Government South Asia Colonial Period War Thought-Provoking Iran Middle East Dutch East India
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The history is amazing, the writing is great and well resourced. My only beef is with the narrator. It is quite infuriating having all non-English names and words butchered and basically just pronounced in a weird way. I feel like it can’t have been very hard to ask a French speaker how to pronounce “compagnie” or “gentil”. Not sure if the Indian and other foreign names are also butchered, but I had to look up what the narrator meant a few times which takes you out of the story.
Besides that it’s fascinating, and an important part of history that is strangely lacking in many history lessons!

Amazing history, average performance

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Dalrymple has clearly done a great deal of research for this book. Overall, he tells the story quite well but some parts, particularly the Mughal Empire internal conflicts, can be a little hard to follow. Perhaps I would have remembered characters' names a bit better if I was reading as opposed to listening? As for the narration, Sid Sagar is very engaging and moves seamlessly between English oration and pronunciation of Indian names and places.
Would definitely recommend if you're really into history.

Overall, very engaging story.

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Incredibly insightful, informative and compelling. Dalrymple unpacks the history of the EIC, and it’s place in Indian, British, and world history in rivetingly entertaining fashion!

The best book in the subject!

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- feels like a lot of original research
- very engaging

To me the book was really about:
- corporate social responsibility
- the last days of the Mughal empire
- the impact and consequences of good and bad decisions made by powerful individuals
- the impact of individuals in shaping history

Awesome

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The true story of the East India Company. Every Anglo-Indian and Englishman should read this to understand where they've come from. Everyone sold read this to know where we're all going if we don't put the brakes on.

They were given an inch and took the country

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Riveting read and very well narrated but a bit gruesome in parts. It raises many questions about the origins of wealth and poverty.

Brilliant expose of the East India company.

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Such a detailed and researched account of a large and rich part of history. The eyewitness accounts combined with perspective gives an astonishing overview.
The narrators superb skills only enhance the story.
The only time I felt the story didnt flow was when modern day currency conversions were stated at the end of paragraphs.

Riveting insight into history

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The intention in buying this book was to learn more about the East India Company - which I did as it unfolded alongside the history of 17th-19th century India, something I knew very little about.
The author and support team have done an absolutely amazing job of finding and translating sources from India and Persia to tell us what the people of the region thought of the East India Company, and this is an invaluable resource which skirts the whitewashing of history we learn at school. The amount of work is truly impressive and results in a view of the times more in keeping with the people than of the historian.
However, the story of the EIC is told in parts as we concentrate more on the history and personalities of India - to the point where the context (these characters) actually become more the book than the story of the EIC. As a history nut, this was a bonus for me, but as the story isn't always entirely sequential and has some repetition, it is very easy to get lost and taken down a path that at times seems to be sensational and brutal for the sake of the shock.
The narrator does an amazing job on the pronunciation, though the early parts of the books do have some pauses and drop in content that has clearly been done at another time. Not the best production work I've heard on here, but at least it was debreathed and for the most part well directed.
As much as I would have liked to know more about the personalities of the EIC - they all seem like stereotypes - and the constant segueing into Indian history was a bit distracting, the book is very well written, narration is clear and well paced - enough so that I'm keen to read his other work on Afghanistan. Surely they did something right to tempt me for the next book.

Amazing Tale Somewhat Lost

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A solid accounting of the British East India history in India. I enjoyed the book overall but felt that too much of the history covered in the book focussed on the Indian royalty rather than the East India Company. Whilst both are obviously intertwined I couldn’t help feel the balance of the book was a bit off.

A good history of early colonialism in India

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well worth the 'read' for the awareness of the destruction caused by the avarice of the directors of the East India Compan

lesson for today

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