Empire, Incorporated

By Philip J. Stern,

Book cover of Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism

Book description

"[A] landmark book...[a] bold reframing of the history of the British Empire."
-Caroline Elkins, Foreign Affairs

An award-winning historian places the corporation-more than the Crown-at the heart of British colonialism, arguing that companies built and governed global empire, raising questions about public and private power that were just as troubling


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Why read it?

1 author picked Empire, Incorporated as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

High-school history classes usually tell students that empires expanded at least partly because of their proponents’ greed. But who, exactly, was trying to get paid, and how?

Empire, Incorporated tells the story of Britain’s imperial expansion by focusing on the corporations that drove it.

If you’re on the fence about reading this book, flip to the “Index of Companies, Corporations, and Societies” at the back: the sheer number of entries makes it clear that we can’t understand Britain’s empire by focusing on governments alone. Imperial rule was much more complicated than that. 

From Christian's list on the rise of the British Empire.

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up


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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in colonies, corporation, and the political economy?

Colonies 75 books
Corporation 45 books