The East India Company: ‘a state in the guise of a merchant’

Course Code: 3XEI10B24

Start Date: 08/01/2025

Wednesday

Session: Morning

Delivery method: Hybrid (Centre and Zoom)

Length in weeks: 10

Time: 10.00am-12.00pm

Price: £

From Elizabethan origins, the East India Company became the world’s largest multinational business through exploitation, intimidation and force. Holding sway over half the world’s trade, providing a tenth of British import duties, its armed forces were greater than most sovereign states, including Britain. Described by Edmund Burke as ‘a state in the guise of a merchant’, by the 1770s it became the first company deemed too big to fail, received massive state bailouts before being dissolved in 1874. This course traces the Company’s history, its employees and its involvement in international politics and trade.