Summary of Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The British East India Company, a trading company, invaded and destroyed the Indian civilization of which Durant was so astonished and outraged. They were carelessly destructive of art and greedy for gain.

#2 The British East India Company subjugated a vast land through the power of their artillery and the cynicism of their amorality. They displaced nawabs and maharajas for a price, and took over their states through various methods.

#3 The East India Company was a British company that was established to trade in silk and spices, but it ended up trading in conquest as well. The first British ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, presented his credentials in 1615 at the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jehangir, but the empire was collapsed within a century and a half.

#4 The East India Company, with an army of 260,000 men at the start of the nineteenth century, extended its control over most of India. It conquered and absorbed a number of states, and imposed executive authority through a series of high-born governors-general appointed from London.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822502444

IRB Media

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Insights on Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The British East India Company, a trading company, invaded and destroyed the Indian civilization of which Durant was so astonished and outraged. They were carelessly destructive of art and greedy for gain.

#2

The British East India Company subjugated a vast land through the power of their artillery and the cynicism of their amorality. They displaced nawabs and maharajas for a price, and took over their states through various methods.

#3

The East India Company was a British company that was established to trade in silk and spices, but it ended up trading in conquest as well. The first British ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, presented his credentials in 1615 at the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jehangir, but the empire was collapsed within a century and a half.

#4

The East India Company, with an army of 260,000 men at the start of the nineteenth century, extended its control over most of India. It conquered and absorbed a number of states, and imposed executive authority through a series of high-born governors-general appointed from London.

#5

The British Industrial Revolution was built on the destruction of India’s textiles industry. The British systematically destroyed India’s textile manufacturing and exports, and replaced them with British ones.

#6

The British monopoly of industrial production drove Indians to agriculture beyond levels the land could sustain. This in turn caused an influx of newly disenfranchised people, formerly artisans, who drove down rural wages.

#7

The story of Indian manufacturing was one of dispossession, displacement, and defeat under British rule. The share of industry in India’s GDP was only 3. 8 percent in 1913, and at its peak, it reached 7. 5 percent when the British left in 1947.

#8

The British ruled India with corruption and brutality. They took away land from Indian farmers and gave it to British settlers, who were often corrupt. They taxed Indian farmers beyond what they could afford, and then stole the rest by bribery, robbery, and even murder.

#9

The scale and extent of British theft in India can be gauged by the impact of Indian-acquired wealth upon England itself. The term nabob was coined by Edmund Burke to describe British employees who made fortunes in India and returned to England, exhibiting the airs of aristocracy and authority that Macaulay found problematic.

#10

The British public began