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The Corporation That Changed the World
- How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational
- Narrated by: Simon Barber
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
The English East India Company was the mother of the modern multinational. Its trading empire encircled the globe, importing Asian luxuries such as spices, textiles, and teas. But it also conquered much of India with its private army and broke open China's markets with opium. The Company's practices shocked its contemporaries and still reverberate today.
The Corporation That Changed the World is the first book to reveal the Company's enduring legacy as a corporation. This expanded edition explores how the four forces of scale, technology, finance, and regulation drove its spectacular rise and fall. For decades, the Company was simply too big to fail, and stock market bubbles, famines, drug-running, and even duels between rival executives are to be found in this new account.
For Robins, the Company's story provides vital lessons on both the role of corporations in world history and the steps required to make global business accountable today.
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In The Company, the largely unknown history of the joint-stock company is presented by the editors of Economist. One of history's greatest catalysts, the joint-stock company has dramatically changed the way human beings live, work, and conduct business. With companies now affecting the world on a global scale, it is more pressing than ever before to understand this driving force.
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unique history with a unique perspective
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The Silk Roads
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- Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy
- Length: 24 hrs and 4 mins
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Performance
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It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures, and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the 20th century - this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.
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An Absolutely SUPERB Book for Lovers of History
- By Dipam on 06-27-21
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The Victory of Reason
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Story
In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and non-secular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason.
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Absolutely incredible history book!
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America's First Great Depression
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For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.
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Excellent Story
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The Price of Greatness
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Principles in Tension
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Slavery's Capitalism
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During the 19th century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War.
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The volume is so low I can't hear it.
- By Anonymous User on 01-30-18
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The Dutch East India Company: A History from Beginning to End
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Once valued at close to seven trillion dollars by today’s standards, the Dutch East India Company, formed in 1602, became the world’s first multinational corporation. In the nearly 200-year reign of their empire at sea, the Dutch East India Company amassed unfathomable fortunes, laid the foundation of the modern globalized world, and built monopolies that controlled the economy of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the East Indies.
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Absolutely awesome book.
- By Aleks on 10-18-18
By: Hourly History
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A Concise History of Italy
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Since its formation in 1861, Italy has struggled to develop an effective political system and a secure sense of national identity. Christopher Duggan's acclaimed introduction charts the country's history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the present day, and surveys the difficulties Italy has faced during the last two centuries in creating a unified country. Duggan successfully weaves together political, economic, social and cultural history, and stresses the alternation between materialist and idealist programs for forging a nation-state.
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Concise indeed
- By nikex on 03-22-21
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The Unfinished Symphony
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This volume will showcase the international grand design led by Benjamin Franklin that manifested in the establishment of the American republic and trace the next 130 years of world history as the USA was targeted for destruction by oligarchical forces from London and also from within leading up to the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.
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Important book not done justice by narrator
- By AZ Buyer on 06-24-23
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A History of the American People
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Johnson's monumental history of the United States, from the first settlers to the Clinton administration, covers every aspect of American culture: politics, business, art, literature, science, society and customs, complex traditions, and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character.
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A British conservative's view of American history.
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-17-09
By: Paul Johnson
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Not Balanced till Conclusion
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In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march.
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Biased revisionist history
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What listeners say about The Corporation That Changed the World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Simon Young
- 07-17-23
Insightful and incisive
My ancestors worked for the East India Company for several generations. This book was helpful in understanding the system in which they worked. Of course, each of us is responsible for our own actions, but we also work within systems. The wrong system can make us all worse than we individually believe ourselves to be. The EIC was such a system.
The last chapters and epilogue tie the story of the EIC directly to the problems of today, with lack of sufficient regulation leading to unbridled power being concentrated in the hands of a few very large corporations.
The narrative delivery is very British! It’s a fine performance of the text, marred only by poor pronunciation of Chinese place names, which bugged me.
Overall I highly recommend this to students of Indian and British history, historians of business, and those in a position to influence government policy around corporations.
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- Customer 101
- 01-10-19
a great review
a very good take of corporate and imperial practices over the almost 300 year life of "John Company". Something that any student of business or ethics should read. the authors claim to remember the actions of those centuries and showcase them to the world rings true.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Raymond Brock
- 10-28-22
i drink liberal tears
I just wanted some historical knowledge about the first corporation. this book filled most of that need, although there was quite a bit left out. but hey, we can't cover 250+ years in any one book. the author obviously has a problem with capitalism, and the last hour is him spewing what he thinks needs to be done to make the world a better place. i can only humbly suggest he start a company, make it successful, then he can do as he wishes with his wealth, instead of preaching about what others should do with what they built.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-12-23
WOW
This was an amazing book that compiled the deep and intricate history of the EIC. The amount of effort that was required to put this together had to have been immense and time-consuming. I applaud and thank Mr. Robins for writing this book. it truly was a pleasure to listen to it.
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- Mark B
- 07-28-21
Awful
One of the worst books I have ever read. I do not think I know anymore about the East India Company now then when I started. I do not recommend this book.
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- Jeffrey A. Evey
- 10-13-18
Seems a bit unbalanced and not fully informed
I'm no expert on the subject matter, but this seems unbalanced to me - when the author quotes Adam Smith, I listen carefully - much of the rest of the book seems to be entirely negative on the company and colonialism - I suspect that although there were plenty of evils associated with each, based on what I've heard from economists, there may be more to the story, none of which is presented in this book.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Bobby
- 10-09-18
Not what I expect from a history book
I found the tone and approach of this book to be out of sync with what it promised. It is more journalistic than historical in its approach. It suffers from anachronisms at every turn. The company is compared to Enron, but only in the vaguest of moral equivalencies. The narrative is constantly disrupted by asides on the contemporary opinion of the EIC in Indian politics. The author's goal is to expose the EIC, and to make the British public take more responsibility and feel a greater sense of shame. That is not the same goal as "Tell the story of the East India Company", the book I thought I was buying.
I would have preferred if the author had delivered coherent narrative up front, perhaps adding a conclusion that connected the company with modern Indian politics, contemporary British misperceptions of the company or whatever other contemporary social issues the author felt were important.
Alternatively, the author could have saved me a credit and just titled it: "Why I hate the East India Company and why you should, too!"
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18 people found this helpful
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- heidi sugarman
- 12-21-17
an axe to grind
the author has an axe to grind and is violently anti capitalist. a socialist diatribe
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