The first British ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, presented his credentials in 1615 at the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jehangir, but the empire was collapsed within a century and a half. #3 The East India Company was a British company that was established to trade in silk and spices, but it ended up trading in conquest as well. They displaced nawabs and maharajas for a price, and took over their states through various methods. #2 The British East India Company subjugated a vast land through the power of their artillery and the cynicism of their amorality. They were carelessly destructive of art and greedy for gain. #1 The British East India Company, a trading company, invaded and destroyed the Indian civilization of which Durant was so astonished and outraged. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy.Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India's deindustrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' - from the railways to the rule of law - was designed in Britain's interests alone. The Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation.
By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. An essential read' Financial Times In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. laying bare the grim, and high, cost of the British Empire for its former subjects. The Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller on India's experience of British colonialism, by the internationally-acclaimed author and diplomat Shashi Tharoor 'Tharoor's impassioned polemic slices straight to the heart of the darkness that drives all empires.
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