My history book club met on Saturday (November 7, 2020) to finish our discussion on The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple. I have been a Dalrymple fan since I read his travel/history book From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East back in 1999. If you have not read it, read it. Wonderful!
We broke the book into two sections, as it’s a thick book (meeting in September and October, but we moved the October talk to November) and I am not sure that everyone liked it, but everyone said they were glad that we read it. Everyone like the idea of the book, about the history of the East India Company, but the main complaint they guys had were all the unfamiliar names and places. The American education system does not cover this time period or these individuals. I knew some of the of individuals as I have had a few classes on Indian art and history and Islamic history and art, but its a cast of thousands. The other main issue everyone had was that on many things we wanted to know more. For example, the trial of the century – the impeachment with Warren Hastings, it starts and the reader is left wanting more. Or how General Cornwallis makes an appearance and you wait for him to be mentioned again and he isn’t. Or Tipu Sultan, one of my favorites from Indian history. I wanted more Tipu the Tiger, as I had written a paper on him and his tiger obsession years ago in an Graduate Art History class. We had just read The British Are Coming about the American Revolution and so this book was the book to read to see what was happening in other parts of the world during the same basic timeframe. I thought it was fun to go from reading about people fighting outside of Princeton to people fighting outside Bengal with elephants. Who does not love elephants? If the British would have had elephants during the American Revolution I believe the war would have gone a bit differently. The Anarchy was my book pick, I really liked it and I would certainly recommend it. Our December book in on the Vikings!