From Merchants to Imperial Bureaucrats? Commerce, Territorial Administration, and the English East India Company, 17th-19th Centuries (original) (raw)

2016, in Juan Carlos Garavaglia & Christian Lamouroux, eds., *Serve the Power(s), Serve the State. America and Eurasia* (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), pp. 244-274

AI-generated Abstract

The study investigates the transformation of the English East India Company (EIC) from a trading entity into an imperial bureaucracy between the 17th and 19th centuries. It challenges the conventional view of a sharp divide between the commercial 'age of trade' and the bureaucratic 'age of empire', asserting that the EIC engaged in numerous bureaucratic activities even during its early years. By examining the case of Calcutta, it emphasizes the complex interplay between the Company's commercial functions and its evolving governmental responsibilities, shaped significantly by interactions with indigenous structures.