The East India Company: A Captivating Guide to the English Company That Was Created for the Exploitation of Trade with East and Southeast Asia and India (Exploring India’s Past)

A good read. It flows well and reads like a narrative more than a history book. They cover a lot of ground in a limited number of pages. Any time you buy one of these concise histories you need to remember that's what it is-concise. If you like what you read and want to learn more there are many good books available but it stands on it's own if you want a solid overview of the subject. I find that if I read these in clusters of related subject I get a reasonable overview of history in a pleasurable read.The East India Company (EIC) has an amazing and infamous history. They basically owned and operated India as an asset of the business until they were taken over by the British government, who didn't do much more for the Indian peoples than the EIC. At times I felt like I was reading historical fiction of what the Medellin Cartel would have looked like in the past. The EIC had a standing army and navy, bought off/keep afloat the British government through bribes and taxes. Britain even went to war twice with China to force that country to buy opium, which was grown in India and exported around the world. Like a drug cartel (yes there were other products from India, textiles, spices, rice) they forced people to grow and supply the opium just survive at the cost of reduced food production. That, in turn, contributed to massive deaths in famine and disease. Amazing! I really didn't see any "silver lining" in their story.There is a lot of high level information in this book and well worth the read.

Good background on the formation of the east India company. Written in an easy to read format with timelines and how the company was able to grow so powerful. It also presents the politics of India, Britain and within the company.

While it is good to have more raw data on these subjects these books rarely go beyond a listing of facts and names. I think of history as something that gives some insights into the subjects and that these booklets rarely do. It is better than nothing of course but brevity for the sake of it is difficult to appreciate.

Great information on The East India Company. It shows how a company can lead most of the trading in certain areas of the world.

like the book a lot. short Guide of the East India Company the rise and fall.

The intro read really strange with a hypothetical anecdote about people being multicultural. The line about “black girls wearing saris” and an “Indian girl laughing at them” just struck me wrong, but was trying to make a point that I guess works. But the first page of chapter 1 talks about the English being defeated by the Spanish Armada without citation. As far as I can tell this is a really bad mistake that you don’t want to get wrong. I think I need my money back.

Too short, otherwise a vert good book.

Book Review Written January 30, 2020The East India Company: A Captivating Guide to the English Company That Was Created for the Exploitation of Trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, By Captivating HistoryKindle Edition (80 Pages)This is a concise history of England's East India Company (EIC) the trading company that help transform the British Isles into the mighty British Empire. The SIC has fascinated historians as well as economists, anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholarly types for years.. Some regard the Company as a prime example of an empire draining the resources of underprivileged people and destroying their entire cultures in a heartbeat. Others see it as the earliest corporate business enterprise and a precursor to modern capitalism. However, with 258 years of activity, it not possible to define the EIC in such simple terms, because It’s all these thing, yet so much more. In this well written volume, the author chronicles the fascinating world of the EIC with all of its bits and pieces, both the good and the bad, and as uncut as possible. The reader is introduced to some of the fascinating people that shaped the Company, from various Indian royalty to different British servants of the EIC, as well as its detractors on both sides of the Eurasian landmass . But more importantly, you will get to see what made the petty English merchants embark upon the journey to the East and what made the Company rise from a trading business to a semi-independent country. And , finally, what made it fall.The author's interesting, conversational narrative style presents the EIC's history with an emphasis on the people who operated the company, and the diverse native peoples and cultures with who they interacted, in a manner that captures and holds the reader 's attention. The narrative provides an excellent, straight forward account that is engaging and readily comprehensible. It's content is obviously well researched and is extensively foot noted to ensure maximum accuracy. The author provides excellent insights throughout the narrative regarding the social, political, economic, religious and cultural developments associated with the EIC operations within England, as well as the Asian countries it operated in. I really enjoyed this book because of the quality of the narrative and the information it provides. I strongly recommend this book to any reader that is interested history .

This book is truly terrible. The quality of both the writing and the analysis is poor. It reads like a high-school essay written by a kid steeped in eurocentrism.