128. Adventurers, by David Howarth
Owned?: No, library Page count: 375 My summary: The East India Company was one of the largest enterprises in British history. Exploding onto the scene in the Tudor era, the EIC rose to a place of riches and power, despite the riskiness of its ventures. This is the story of how the EIC rose from a singular idea to a branch of Empire. My rating: 1/5 My commentary:
Sometimes, I liken non-fiction books to conversations. A good non-fiction book can feel like a really interesting lecture, or a chat with a nice person about their particular area of interest, that sort of thing. This book is like a drunken rant from some guy at the pub who's talking so loud you can't drown him out, and the more he talks the more you become uncomfortably aware that he has some opinions on politics that you neither share nor like, and he keeps going off on tangents and rambling about this and that, and you just want him to shut up or leave but nope, he keeps on going, over and over, until you want to punch him. To say that I didn't enjoy this book would be something of an understatement. Of all the books on India that I have read, this was by far the worst. Christ, at least The British In India referenced people of colour and talked about their lives and experiences somewhat, as well as being at least a little critical of colonial atrocities. This book starts out by valorising the courage and tenacity of the East India Company men, and just gets worse from there.
It bears repeating, anyone who lionises the people who died and suffered looking for the semi-mythical Northwest Passage in order to bring more colonisation to the world and commerce to England is at best misguided, and at worst pro-colonialism. Notably, the colonial atrocities committed by the East India Company, even in its early days, are not present in this book. Instead, the author just vaguely talks about commerce and the growth of the Company, ignoring the wood for the trees. The writing itself is hard to follow, rambling from point to point, veering off topic, and hopping around in history. The book starts at the inception of the Company in 1600, but goes back and forth in time for no apparent reason rather than presenting a more linear view of events that you might expect from a non-fiction work. The prose, too, is full of the author's little asides and attempts to cram in as many five dollar words as humanly possible, to the point where it just gets obnoxious. I learned nothing from this book. I slogged through this book out of stubbornness. And now I'm very glad to have the thing behind me. Ugh. What a waste of time.
Next, back to Fairyland, but away from September.
