Philip Stern, “The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India” (Oxford UP, 2011)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Nov 30, 2011 · 1h 6m

‘Traders to rulers’ is an enduring caption insofar as the English East India Company is concerned. But were they ever just traders to start off with, and they eventually morph into mere temporal rulers unconcerned with the dynamics of the global economy? Philip Stern‘s book, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) explores just this: the changing boundaries and demarcations between corporate bodies and sovereign states, and the ‘rightful’ spheres of action of each. This is not to suggest…