This is an excellent polemic and intellectual critique of the British colonial looting of India. It describes in horrifying detail what colonialism really was: the exploitation of a land for the benefit of the colonizers at the expense of the colonized. The book discusses the many unfair impositions of the British on the Indians: the overt discriminatory racism, the taxation, the creation of import and export tariffs for the benefit of British manufacturers and traders, the forced deindustrialization or prevention of industrial development of the country, the famines, and the political subjugation of the country.
I thought the book, though, paid insufficient attention to how the British were able to occupy a huge and populace country such as India. To a certain extent, I think it was a coincidence or combination of events that happened to occur at the same time. The Mogul dynasty and central government collapsed, and India was invaded by the Persians, just when the British East India Company and the French went to war all over the world, including in India. The author (Shashi Tharoor) also, I think, misjudges the significance and effects of the European Industrial Revolution and the superior European military performance at the time. By the mid- to late 18th century, a European army and navy could defeat a much larger Indian or Asian army or navy. The European colonization or seizure of Africa and Asia occurred because of a huge superiority in military and industrial technology. To this day, if one country possesses a military or technological - industrial advantage over another country, it will use it for it's own benefit. The people of India, China, and Africa found this out.
Another excellent book on this subject is "The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire" by Dalrymple (2019).
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Mr. Lee D. Rolls
Compelling, persuasive and undeniably historically true
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2024