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Empires have usually been founded by charismatic, egoistic warriors or power-hungry states and peoples, sometimes spurred on by a sense of religious mission. So how was it that the nineteenth-century British Indian Raj was so different? Arising, initially, from the militant policies and actions of a bunch of London merchants chartered as the English East India Company by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, for one hundred and fifty years they had generally pursued a peaceful and thereby profitable trade in the India, recognized by local Indian princes as mutually beneficial. Yet from the 1740s, Company men began to leave the counting house for the parade ground, fighting against the French and the Indian princes over the next forty years until they stood upon the threshold of succeeding the declining Mughul Empire as the next hegamon of India. This book roots its explanation of this phenomenon in the evidence of the words and thoughts of the major, and not-so major, players, as revealed in the rich archives of the early Raj. Public dispatches from the Company's servants in India to their masters in London contain elaborate justifications and records of debates in its councils for the policies (grand strategies) adopted to deal with the challenges created by the unstable political developments of the time. Thousands of surviving private letters between Britons in India and the homeland reveal powerful underlying currents of ambition, cupidity and jealousy and how they impacted on political manoeuvring and the development of policy at both ends. This book shows why the Company became involved in the military and political penetration of India and provides a political and military narrative of the Company's involvement in the wars with France and with several Indian powers. G. J. Bryant, who has a Ph.D. from King's College London, has written extensively on the British military experience in eighteenth-century India.

Great Britain --- India --- Colonies --- Politics and government --- British --- History --- East India Company --- History. --- British people --- Britishers --- Britons (British) --- Brits --- Ethnology --- Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East Indies --- United Company of Merchants of England, Trading to the East Indies --- English East India Company --- East India Company (English) --- East India Tea Company --- East-India Companie --- United East India Company --- Compagnie des Indes orientales d'Angleterre --- Compagnie unie de marchands d'Angleterre commerçans aux Indes orientales --- Tung Yin-tu kung ssu --- Honourable East-India Company --- Sharikat al-Hind al-Sharqīyah al-Barīṭānīyah --- Engelse Oost-Indische Maatschappy --- Kumpanī-i Hind-i Sharqī --- کمپنى هند شرقى --- English Company Trading to the East-Indies --- Īsṭa Iṇḍiyā Kampanī --- British Indian Raj. --- East India Company. --- French. --- G. J. Bryant. --- Indian princes. --- Infiltration of India. --- London merchants. --- Profitable trade. --- Queen Elizabeth. --- Unstable political developments.