Anarchy - book review

Anarchy by William Dalrymple — book review

    'Anarchy' unravels the enigmatic portrayal of the East India company, from its genesis, to its gradual vanishing from history. 

       "It was not the British Government that began seizing great chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company based in a small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by a violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator — Clive."

My perception was quite different from the quoted line above, until I read this book authored by William Dalrymple. 

         Dalrymple gives an extensive knowledge of the EIC, validating by excerpts from accounts of real — time  historians, letters etc.

He also gives an overview of the personality of the dramatis personae (characters which appear in the book). 

       This book contains accounts of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the Bengal famine , insiders accounts and how the British government dealt EIC which may not be covered widely in other available sources.

       ' He (Clive) was all over estates and diamonds... and  if a beggar asks charity, he says, " Friend I have no small brillants with me.” There was also a rumour that Lady Clive's pet bird had a diamond necklace '. Many interesting facts like these are embedded in Dalrymple's book. 

     In addition, the author compares the past with the present in the epilogue (then corporate supremacy vs. now). 

      Do not get disheartened by the sheer volume of the book. It's a very slow book, since there are a lot of information to be assimilated. It's definitely worth a reading, as it furnishes a blanket account from 1600 to 1803, a much skipped history period.