During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into the grandest society of merchants in the universe. As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire.
During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into the grandest society of merchants in the universe....
Sowing the Wind tells of how and why this happened. The subject is painful and essentially sombre, but John Keay illuminates it with lucid analysis and anecdotes. This is that rarest of works, a history with humour, an epic with attitude, a dirge that delights. Here are unearthed a host of unregarded precedents, from the Gulf's first gusher to the first aerial assault on Baghdad, the first of Syria's innumerable coups, and the first terrorist outrages and suicide bombers. Little known figures--junior officers, contractors, explorers, spies--contest the orthodoxies of Arabist...
Sowing the Wind tells of how and why this happened. The subject is painful and essentially sombre, but John Keay illuminates it with luci...
Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the reader up to present-day India, John Keay s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today. In charting the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that comprise the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Keay weaves together insights from a variety of scholarly fields to create a rich historical narrative. Wide-ranging and...
Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the reader up to present-day India, John Keay s India: A History spans five millennia in ...
Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past. Keay's authoritative history examines 5,000 years in China, from the time of the Three Dynasties through Chairman Mao and the current economic transformation of the country. Crisp, judicious, and engaging, China is the classic single-volume history for anyone seeking to understand the present and...
Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled,...