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The Anarchy

The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

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The Anarchy

By: William Dalrymple
Narrated by: Sid Sagar
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Bloomsbury presents The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, read by Sid Sagar.

THE TOP 5 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR
FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020
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

‘Dalrymple is a superb historian with a visceral understanding of India … A book of beauty’ – Gerard DeGroot, The Times

In August 1765 the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish a new administration in his richest provinces. Run by English merchants who collected taxes using a ruthless private army, this new regime saw the East India Company transform itself from an international trading corporation into something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.

William Dalrymple tells the remarkable story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.©2019 William Dalrymple (P)2019 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 18th Century Asia Colonialism & Post-Colonialism Europe Great Britain India Military Modern Politics & Government South Asia Colonial Period War Iran Middle East Dutch East India
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Critic reviews

An energetic pageturner that marches from the counting house on to the battlefield, exploding patriotic myths along the way (Maya Jasanoff)
A tour de force ***** (Anne de Courcy)
Magnificent … The Anarchy explodes myths that have accreted around the history of the Company like barnacles on the hulls of its ships ... Dalrymple shines a forensic light on the knotty historical relationship between commercial and imperial power (John McAleer)
Dalrymple has been at the forefront of the new wave of popular history, consistently producing work that engages with a wider audience through writerly craft, an emphasis on characters and their agency, evocative description of place and time, and the inclusion of long-neglected perspectives … The book’s real achievement is to take readers to an important and neglected period of British and south Asian history, and to make their trip their not just informative but colourful (Jason Burke)
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)
It is well-trodden territory but Dalrymple ... brings to it erudition, deep insight and an entertaining style
Combining extensive research, judicious analysis and an acceptable level of outrage, Dalrymple’s compelling account will cement his status as the most widely read British writer on India since Kipling … A brave and stirring narrative of India’s eighteenth-century fragmentation (John Keay)
[A] rampaging, brilliant, passionate history … Dalrymple gives us every sword-slash, every scam, every groan and battle cry. He has no rival as a narrative historian of the British in India … A gripping tale of bloodshed and deceit, of unimaginable opulence and intolerable starvation ... shot through with an unappeasable moral passion
‘Masterful … Dalrymple has been for some years one of the most eloquent and assiduous chroniclers of Indian history. With this new work, he sounds a minatory note … Dalrymple has done a great service in not just writing an eminently readable history of eighteenth-century India, but in reflecting on how so much of it serves as a warning for our own time’ (Stuart Kelly)
A magnificently readable book, deeply researched and richly atmospheric, written with a historian’s understanding of power and a novelistic eye for detail ***** (Francis Wheen)
A rip-roaring tale of wild adventure, amorality, feckless greed and despicable behaviour … His best history to date (Louise Nicholson)
[Dalrymple] is a terrifically good storyteller. He makes the reader see how events unfold and observe the personalities up close. He is widely read both in the primary sources and the historical scholarship. As a result, The Anarchy is one of the best books on Indian history published in a long time
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My only complaint is that the narrator mispronounces something or other, or places a strange emphasis on a word, regularly throughout the reading - I don’t blame the performer, there should have been a studio director listening out and correcting him!

Good but quirky narrator

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An excellent and interesting history ruined by the narrator. It’s not his fault that the editor chose to render current monetary values in such a tedious way. What is his fault is the appalling lack of research into something as basic as pronunciation. There are so many mispronunciations within the first hour that grate on the ear and offend because it is basic. If you don’t know, find out. I’ll read the book.

How to ruin a brilliant history.

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Engagingly told story. What could be a somewhat dated narrative style is redeemed by a contemporary sensibility.

The outlandish pronunciation of some words is a little annoying.

Cracking tales but bizarre pronunciation

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I'd recommend this. Kept to the subject yet colourful and entertaining. I'd recommend Roger Crowleys 'Conquerors' as an accompaniment. It deals with Portugals equivalent ventures in India.

Does what it says on the tin

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The text of the book on the whole has been well read by Sid Sagar . Unfortunately the reader’s pronunciation of Indian names, Persian and Urdu words and names of places is anglicised and very unsatisfactory. If he had consulted someone familiar with Persian and Urdu, he would have found it possible to deliver better pronunciation. This book covers an important part of India’s history.The author spent six years researching it and has produced a masterpiece. One would expect Audible to ensure its reader would make the effort to pronounce important names properly.

Mispronunciations of historic names and terms

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