Download The East India Company: The History of the British Empire's Most Famous Mercantile Company AudioBook Free
The English East India Company offered among the key players in the formation of the English Empire. From its origins as a trading company struggling to maintain with its superior Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish competition to its tenure as the ruling power of the Indian subcontinent to its eventual hubristic downfall, the East India Company acts as a lens through which to explore the much larger economic and communal forces that formed the formation of a global English Empire. As an exclusive company that became a non-state global electric power in its right, the East India Company also acts as a cautionary story all too relevant to the present day world's current politics and economical situation.On its most basic level, the East India Company performed an important part in the development of long-distance trade between Britain and Asia. The trade in textiles, ceramics, tea, and other goods helped bring an enormous influx of capital into the British economy. This not only fueled the Industrial Revolution, but also created a demand for luxury items amidst the middle classes. The economical progress provided by the East India Company was one element in Britain's ascendancy from a middling local power to the most effective nation on the planet. The profits generated by the East India Company also created incentive for other Western european powers to follow its lead, which led to three hundreds of years of competition for colonies across the world. This process went well beyond Asia to impact most of the earth, including Africa and the center East. Beyond its obvious impact in areas like trade and business, the East India Company also offered as a point of ethnic contact between American Europeans, South Asians, and East Asians. Quintessentially British isles tactics such as tea taking in were made possible by East India Company trade. The merchandise and cultural tactics traveling backwards and forwards on East India Company boats from one continent to another also reconfigured the way societies around the world seen sexuality, gender, school, and labor. On a much darker level, the East India Company fueled white supremacy and Western european principles of Orientalism (See Said, Orientalism). Within the same vein, as a joint stock company, the East India Company left out meticulous documentation of its economical exchanges and guidelines. Descriptions of armed service efforts, encounters with indigenous peoples, and codes of carry out for employees also give contemporary researchers insight into the cultural perspectives of those who governed the business. Moreover, the East India Company's guidelines and staff were the subject of repeated commentaries in papers, parliamentary debates, and other publicly available sources. Historians have used these thorough records to reconstruct both day-to-day procedures and the larger historical arc of the business. In addition, the sources created by the East India Company provide perception into the much less well-documented histories of people the East India Company encountered, traded with, and in the end conquered. Among the major reasons that the East India Company remains the subject of intense interest is the fact that the consequences of its impact remain visible in India, Britain, and other parts of the world even today. While the British isles Crown eventually replaced the East India Company as the governing power of India, the systems of production they had proven remained intact. Over fifty percent a century after India announced freedom from the English Empire, the economical and cultural effects of this colonial system of production remained obvious. The disparities in prosperity and power between the global North and the global South may well not stem from the East India Company by itself, however the company performed an indisputable role in imperial process.
