RaveThe Evening Standard (UK)... magnificent ... Dalrymple is an accomplished historian with a gift for imposing narrative clarity on a complex story. He combines a profound understanding of the background against which the Company’s story played out with an impressive capacity to weave a range of historical voices into this history ... Dalrymple has a sharp eye for a telling phrase ... explodes myths that have accreted around the history of the Company like barnacles on the hulls of its ships. Dalrymple’s beautifully paced prose corrects the view that there was a masterplan for conquering the subcontinent. He also disabuses readers of the mystique surrounding the civilising mission of empire, and exposes 200-year-old fake news about Tipu Sultan ... could not be described as light reading ... Ultimately, Dalrymple shines a forensic light on the knotty historical relationship between commercial and imperial power.
