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The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
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The Anarchy
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Publisher's Summary
Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar.
The top five sunday times best seller.
One of Barack Obama's best books of 2019.
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.
In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army – what we would now call an act of involuntary privatisation.
The East India Company’s founding charter authorised it to ‘wage war’ and it had always used violence to gain its ends. But the creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business. In less than four decades it had trained up a security force of around 200,000 men – twice the size of the British army – and had subdued an entire subcontinent, conquering first Bengal and finally, in 1803, the Mughal capital of Delhi itself. The Company’s reach stretched until almost all of India south of the Himalayas was effectively ruled from a boardroom in London.
The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting book to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
Critic Reviews
"Gloriously opulent...India is a sumptuous place. Telling its story properly demands lush language, not to mention sensitivity towards the country’s passionate complexity. Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India...A book of beauty." (Gerard DeGroot, The Times)
"Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India...A book of beauty." (Gerard DeGroot, The Times)
"An energetic pageturner that marches from the counting house on to the battlefield, exploding patriotic myths along the way...Dalrymple’s spirited, detailed telling will be reason enough for many readers to devour The Anarchy. But his more novel and arguably greater achievement lies in the way he places the company’s rise in the turbulent political landscape of late Mughal India." (Maya Jasanoff, Guardian)
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What listeners say about The Anarchy
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gerrit Gmel
- 18-01-2020
Amazing history, average performance
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!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 27-09-2021
Overall, very engaging story.
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.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- James Haines
- 22-03-2023
The best book in the subject!
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!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Pandu kerr
- 26-12-2023
Awesome
- 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
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 20-12-2019
lesson for today
well worth the 'read' for the awareness of the destruction caused by the avarice of the directors of the East India Compan
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sudhakar
- 10-10-2020
Great work, perfect audio
Couldn't stop listening. History explained at its best. Narration was clear and never felt boring - on a subject as this sometimes names, years, currency can be. But both author and narrator were brilliant beyond comparison.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- DAVID CROOKES
- 30-04-2022
World history
Excellent and detailed account of the rise and rise of the first capitalist superpower. The story of capitalism writ large not only monopolising trade and industry but replacing traditional government and military power in a single entity whose purpose is simply profit and whose congregation the stock holder.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sydney Prepper Guy
- 31-01-2024
Extremely detailed
A very informative and detailed book about the challenges the country of India faced with this greedy and violent company
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anthony
- 13-08-2021
They were given an inch and took the country
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.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Wendy Burr
- 13-07-2020
Brilliant expose of the East India company.
Riveting read and very well narrated but a bit gruesome in parts. It raises many questions about the origins of wealth and poverty.
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