title: The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833
author:  H. V. Bowen 
description: &#147;Bowen's important argument in attractive prose belongs in all academic libraries.... Highly recommended.&#148; -- Choice<br /><br />"The Business of Empireprovides a rich and fascinating exploration of what H.V. Bowen modestly describes as the 'internal history' of the East India Company...The book offers a wealth of insights." <br/>Douglas M. Peers, The International History Review<br /><br />"...his approach is unprecedented and much needed...an excellent starting point from which others can explore these topics." --Woodruff D. Smith, University of Massachusetts: Journal of Interdisciplinary History<br /><br />"...a highly accessible and yet rigorously scholarly study..." -Michael H. Fisher, Histoire sociale
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  Dramatis Personae
  
  
  1\. THE BRITISH
  
  
  Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive 1725–74
  
  
  East India Company accountant who rose through his remarkable military talents
  to be Governor of Bengal. Thickset, laconic, but fiercely ambitious and
  unusually forceful, he proved to be a violent and ruthless but extremely
  capable leader of the Company and its military forces in India. He had a
  streetfighter’s eye for sizing up an opponent, a talent at seizing the
  opportunities presented by happenchance, a willingness to take great risks and
  a breathtaking, aggressive audacity. It was he who established the political
  and military supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa,
  and laid the foundations for British rule in India.
  
  
  Warren Hastings
  
  
  1732–1818
  
  
  Scholar and linguist who was the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort
  William, the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal and the de facto first
  Governor General of India from 1773 to 1785. Plain-living, scholarly, 