Empire of Influence: The East India Company and the Making of Indirect Rule

Indirect rule was a defining feature of the British Empire, but its earlier history remains largely unexplored. Empire of Influence by Callie Wilkinson explores the contentious process of the East India Company establishing indirect rule in India in the nineteenth century, highlighting the disagreement surrounding the tactics and the experimental nature of early attempts to secure Company control.

Format: Hardback
Length: 262 pages
Publication date: 30 March 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Indirect rule, a defining characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth-century British Empire, has garnered significant attention, while its earlier contentious history remains largely unexplored. Empire of Influence delves into the intricate process by which the East India Company established a system of indirect rule in India during the early nineteenth century. Through a series of thematic chapters encompassing intelligence gathering, violence, gift-giving, and the co-optation of the scribal and courtly elite, Callie Wilkinson highlights the ongoing debates surrounding the strategies employed by the Company's political representatives. She also recaptures the experimental nature of early attempts to secure Company control, emphasizing how these endeavors were reshaped, exploited, and resisted by Indians and contested within the Company itself. This groundbreaking account unveils the contested origins of these complex relationships of protection and coercion, while identifying the factors that facilitated their establishment and persistence.

Indirect rule, a defining characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth-century British Empire, has garnered significant attention, while its earlier contentious history remains largely unexplored. Empire of Influence delves into the intricate process by which the East India Company established a system of indirect rule in India during the early nineteenth century. Through a series of thematic chapters encompassing intelligence gathering, violence, gift-giving, and the co-optation of the scribal and courtly elite, Callie Wilkinson highlights the ongoing debates surrounding the strategies employed by the Company's political representatives. She also recaptures the experimental nature of early attempts to secure Company control, emphasizing how these endeavors were reshaped, exploited, and resisted by Indians and contested within the Company itself. This groundbreaking account unveils the contested origins of these complex relationships of protection and coercion, while identifying the factors that facilitated their establishment and persistence.

Weight: 584g
Dimension: 235 x 158 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781009311731