** 37th book of 2021: Chaos is a Ladder **
Set in the declining days of the Mughal empire, the Anarchy follows the rise of the East India Company. In a few decades, it went from a trading company that lost more than 34% of its ships (1) to a state with twice the standing army of Britain. After a long history as arrogant traders with their own security forces, the English learned that superior training, tactics, and economic wherewithal made mercenary work a profitable side-hustle to trading goods.
The step from mercenary work to holding territory was apparently a small one, and in a stroke the EIC went from a joint stock company to a state built as a corporation. I wish The Anarchy focused more on this transition, as well as the internal mechanisms by which the EIC decided to capture, hold, and govern. I would also be curious about how people consented to be ruled by a colonialist corporation, and the reception of London to such a momentous turn of events.
Instead the author focuses on the one-damn-thing-after-another aspect of history. In this case the chessboard was the carcass of India. As the Mughal empire disintegrated into warring factions, the EIC, like Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, annexed and cajoled its way to domination. The EIC’s biggest advantage was finances: * The East Indian Company spoke a language that Indian financiers understood and offered a higher degree of security for Indian capital than its rivals. In the end it all came down to money. As a state, EIC was able to eke out a surplus in government expenses more than 10 times its neighboring rivals. By the time the EIC took over Delhi, there is not a Maratha in the whole country, from the Peshwa down to lowest horseman, who has a shilling. * Maybe I’m just spoiled by Gibbon and Durant, but I want more from my history than the movement of armies and relentless pendulum of territorial acquisition.
(1) * Between 1601 and 1640 the company sent a total of 164 ships eastwards, only 104 arrived back again. *