William Dalrymple - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

In 2025 we still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a much more sinister reality. For it was not the British government that began seizing chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in the city of London. Bringing together decades of meticulous research and masterful narration, William will tell us the remarkable story of how the Mughal empire, which then generated just under half the world's wealth, disintegrated and came to be replaced by the East India Company – an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational corporation.

Do not miss the remarkable story of India and empire as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.