Honourable Company

The most infamous of the trading companies established by the great European powers, the English East India Company was the world's greatest trading power. For more than two centuries, they dominated world trade, raised armies and demolished nations. Now comes this major new book--a surprise hit in England. Photos and maps. \nDuring 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into the grandest society of merchants in the universe. As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire.