Introduction: "A State in the Disguise of a Merchant"
Part I: Foundations
Chapter 1 "Planning & Peopling Your Colony": Building a
Company-State
Chapter 2 "A Sort of Republic for the Management of Trade": The
Jurisdiction of a Company-State
Chapter 3 "A Politie of Civill and Military Power": Diplomacy, War,
and Expansion
Chapter 4 "Politicall Science and Martiall Prudence": Political
Thought and Political Economy
Chapter 5 "The Most Sure and Profitable Sort of Merchandice":
Protestantism and Piety
Part II: Transformations
Chapter 6 "Great Warrs Leave Behind them Long Tales": Crisis and
Response in Asia after 1688
Chapter 7 Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae": Crisis and Response
in Britain after 1688
Chapter 8 "The Day of Small Things": Civic Governance in the New
Century
Chapter 9 "A Sword in One Hand & Money in the Other": Old Patterns,
New Rivals
Conclusion "A Great and Famous Superstructure"
Abbreviations
Glossary
Notes
Index
Philip J. Stern is Associate Professor of History at Duke University.
"With great skill, Stern has extracted from the archives a cogent
and highly engaging narrative of events that even participants
found highly tremendously confusing. He deftly conveys the world of
the East India company, marshaling striking visual materials and
wonderfully evocative quotations from a wide array of Company
documents."--Radical History Review
"A thought-provoking reinterpretation [that] will compel us to
reexamine assumptions about colonial companies in
general."--H-Net
"In a work of deep erudition and striking originality Philip Stern
deftly demolishes many of the categories by which we try to
organize our work: are states and companies really different
animals, were the early modern Atlantic and Indian Oceans distinct
worlds, what, if anything, was new about the post-Plassey British
Indian empire? We are politely but firmly directed back to the
drawing board."--P. J. Marshall, King's College London
"In The Company-State, Philip Stern has made an important
contribution not only to studies of empire, but to early modern
history in general. This is an important and innovative
reconsideration of the East India Company as a political actor in
the first phase of its career. This incisively crafted book will be
widely read, cited, and debated."--Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University
of California, Los Angeles
"A bracing re-thinking of the early modern East India Company and
its role in shaping English practices of empire, governance,
'trade,' and polity, Philip Stern's book will replace all previous
studies on the topic."--Kathleen Wilson, Stony Brook University
"Stern's rich portrait of the East India Company as a sovereign
entity transforms our vision of politics and culture in the early
British Empire. Masterfully researched and written with flair, the
book places conflicts over corporate sovereignty at the center of a
vast and variegated imperial field. The Company-State significantly
advances new narratives of global empire."--Lauren Benton, New York
University
"In this forcefully argued and prodigiously researched book, Philip
J. Stern overturns long-standing assumptions about the English East
India Company, the British Empire, and early modern empires.
Stern's innovative reassessment of the East India Company's first
century builds a new foundation for the British empire and his
model of composite, decentralized empires has broad resonance
across the early modern world. Historians will be coming to terms
with the
wide-ranging implications of Stern's important and provocative work
for years to come."--Alison Games, author of Web of Empire: English
Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660
"A thought-provoking reinterpretation...[that] will compel us to
reexamine assumptions about colonial companies in general."--LIlya
Vinkovetsky, H-Net
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