Governors of Empire: The East India Company’s Chief Functionaries in India by Amar Farooqui

In April 1608, when the East India Company ship Hector arrived at Surat in present-day Gujarat, no one could have predicted how some of the merchants on board would go on to alter the course of Indian history. From the moment of its docking to the Revolt of 1857, a succession of those passengers helped transform the Company from a trading collective into a colonising force.

In Governors of Empire, historian Amar Farooqui traces the journeys of these men—from their arrival on Indian shores, through their acquisition of territories using a mix of trade agreements and political deception, to their eventual return to Britain, vastly richer than before.

Beginning with Robert Clive, the self-fashioned hero of British imperialism who played a decisive role in the annexation of Bengal, the book moves through a series of powerful governors whose actions ultimately placed India under the Crown.

After Clive came Warren Hastings, who began his tenure as governor of Bengal and expanded his authority over Bengal and Bihar. His period was followed by the regime of Charles Cornwallis, often described—wrongly, and largely through colonial propaganda—as the “golden age” of British rule.

Next came less widely known figures such as John Shore and Robert Hobart, before the rise of Richard Wellesley, under whom the system of “subsidiary alliances” became a core instrument of the Company’s territorial expansion.

Lord Moira followed, destroying the peshwai and breaking Maratha power in western India. William Bentinck’s time as governor-general then marked a brief interlude before a violent phase of warfare that completed the Company’s conquest of the subcontinent.

Lord Dalhousie, who succeeded Bentinck, was instrumental in the annexation of Punjab and Awadh, pushing the Company’s frontiers deep into northern India. He was succeeded by Charles Canning, the last governor-general appointed by the Company, and John Lawrence, one of the Company’s last “old guard,” who played a central role in recapturing Delhi during the Revolt of 1857.

Through its sharply drawn portraits of the Company’s most influential figures, Governors of Empire vividly tells the story of how the East India Company conquered India through the lives and decisions of its governors.

• British Empire

ENG- English

• Hardcover