This collection of essays, two of which appear in print for the first time, documents the late Holden Furbera s discovery that private ventures, most manifestly deployed in the a country tradea between Asian ports, played a major role in the European expansion in India before the age of empire. Furber vividly describes how individual entrepreneurs used their positions with East India Companies to build personal fortunes, and how these private endeavours, for which the English East India Company gave more latitude, ultimately worked to the benefit of British power in India. One of the...