Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia 1600-1834

The British merchants who began trading with Asia in the late 1500s found a sophisticated and thriving trading community. Goods were manufactured and traded on a scale never seen in Europe, and Britain discovered a wealth of products including silks, porcelain, tea, spices and furniture. This illustrated book examines the history of trading with Asia, drawing on the extensive collections of the British Library, the prime holder of the documentary legacy of the East India Company. The East India Company was founded in 1600 to consolidate and exploit the Asian markets, and over its history grew into “the grandest society of merchants in the universe”. As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world’s trade and as political entity it administered an embryonic empire. This book shows the human cost of creating this early “global market” and how the Company’s activities displayed some of the worst aspects of colonialism. On the positive side, the book presents the importance of the 400-year cultural exchange between Asia and Europe.

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