Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by William Dalrymple

Quote by William Dalrymple

“No one was planning to travel light. One brigadier claimed that he needed fifty camels to carry his kit, while General Cotton took 260 for his. Three hundred camels were earmarked to carry the military wine cellar. Even junior officers travelled with as many as forty servants—ranging from cooks and sweepers to bearers and water carriers. According to Major General Nott, who had to work his way up through his career without the benefit of connections, patronage or money and who looked with a jaundiced eye on the rich young officers of the Queen's Regiments, it was already clear that the army was not enforcing proper military austerity. Many of the junior officers were already treating the war as though it were as light-hearted as a hunting trip—indeed one regiment had actually brought its own foxhounds with it to the front.”

Quote by William Dalrymple

Book:Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan
Create image

Work

Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple, born on March 20, 1965, is a renowned historian specializing in the history and culture of the Indian subcontinent, particularly the Mughal Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries. His works are known for their in-depth historical research and engaging narrative style. more

You May Also Like

“Up until the end of the 16th century, even global trading outfits like the Levant Company were guilds or partnerships, whose members pooled their resources that none could accomplish in isolation. But then, on the September 24, 1599, in a half-timbered building off Moorgate Fields, not far from where Shakespeare was struggling to complete Hamlet, something momentous happened. A company was founded whose ownership was cut up into tiny pieces to be bought and sold freely and anonymously, like pieces of silver. Once could own a piece of the company without being involved of it, indeed without even telling anyone. The first global joint-stock company was thus born, undoubtly Tudor England’s most revolutionary invention. Its name? The East India Company.”

CapitalismCorporationsLiberalismEast India CompanyJoint StockShareholdingCapitalist Property Rights
Book:Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
Create image

“The right to issue unlimited quantities of anonymously tradable shares, along with the institution of a liquid market for them, created something new: corporations with power so immense, it dwarfed that of their countries of origin, and could be deployed in faraway places assiduously to exploit people and resources. Shareholding and well-governed share markets fired up history, separating ownership from the rest of the East India Company’s activities unleashed a fluid, irresistible force. Unchecked, the East India Company grew more powerful than the British state, answerable only to its shareholders. At home, its bureaucracy corrupted and largely controlled Her majesty’s government. Abroad, its 200,000-strong private army oversaw the destruction of well-functioning economies in Asia and a number of Pacific islands and ensured the systematic exploitation of their peoples.”

CapitalismCorporationsLiberalismEast India CompanyJoint StockShareholdingCapitalist Property Rights
Book:Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
Create image

“The heinous misdeeds committed by the empire are no longer privy to debate. It's a known fact, at least to people with some basic brains... Imagine me coming to your home and then declaring myself the guardian of the house while helping myself with all your resources and keeping you as underling - you know, like the pilgrims did to the native Americans. Sucks right! Exactly my point!”

OppressionOccupationColonialismBritish EmpireBritish HistoryBritish ImperialismEast India CompanyBritish Raj
Book:Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race
Create image

“One of the reasons for this cataclysmic change of destinies was the inherent weakness of a decaying agricultural empire of the Mughals which after more than two hundred years of rule over vast areas of India, was at its terminal stage and needed a small push to crumble like a house of cards.That push was given by six East India Companies of different European countries which had extracted rights to trade with India from the Mughals but transformed themselves as the arbiters and protectors of several Indian states. In this process they not only became rich but also militarily strong because in the twilight years of the Mughal empire, deteriorating security environment necessitated to arm themselves to protect their economic interests. Because of their inherent superiority as representatives of rising industrial powers, they had access to modern techniques and technology of warfare, which turned out to be the decisive factor in capturing vast territories in India.”

IndiaEast India CompanyMughals
Book:1857 Indian War of Independence:1857 Indian Sepoys' Mutiny
Create image

“The East India Company was no apparition though; it was the template for many subsequent corporations […] Liberals betray themselves […] the moment they turn a blind eye to this kind of hyper-concentrated power. […] This is why trading in apples does not come even close to trading in shares. Large quantities may produce, at worse, lots of bad cider, but large amounts of money invested in liquid shares can release demonic forces that no market or state can control.”

CapitalismCorporationsLiberalismFree MarketEast India CompanyJoint StockShareholdingCapitalist Property Rights
Book:Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
Create image

“A contemporary commentator drew an analogy between the East India Company’s ownership structure and the River Thames’ splendid flux, which leaves it ‘still the same river, though the parts which compose it are changing every instance.’ Once the property rights over a firm become detached from the people that set it up and work in it, it becomes a corpus in flux. It acquires a liquid life of its own, it can grow out of any human proportion. Indeed, like a river, it becomes potentially immortal.”

CapitalismLiberalismEast India CompanyJoint StockShareholdingCapitalist Property Rights
Book:Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present
Create image