The Great Bengal Famine of 1770
The rains failed in 1769 and Bengal died by the million while the revenue was violently kept up. The famine of 1770 is the darkest page of the Company's rise.
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The Diwani Years: How the Company Bled Bengal
After 1765 the Company bought Bengal's goods with Bengal's own taxes while private fortunes sailed home. The province was bled to the edge of ruin within a decade.
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From Mir Jafar to Buxar: The Battle That Truly Decided India
Buxar in 1764 broke a Nawab, a Wazir and the Mughal emperor together, and the Diwani of 1765 made a merchant company the lawful sovereign of Bengal's revenues.
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Plassey 1757: The Conspiracy That Won an Empire
Plassey was a transaction with gunfire attached: a conspiracy of generals and bankers, a rain soaked cannonade, and the treasury of Bengal as the prize.
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Siraj ud Daulah and the Fall of Calcutta
Siraj ud Daulah's grievances against Calcutta were largely just. Asserting them cost the young Nawab his capital's dignity, his throne and his life.
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Clive at Arcot: Fifty Days That Made a Reputation
With five hundred men and three guns, a twenty six year old former clerk seized and held Chanda Sahib's capital for fifty days and changed the Carnatic war.
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Dupleix: The Frenchman Who Wrote the Playbook of Empire
Sepoy armies, puppet rulers, subsidiary alliances: Dupleix invented every device of European empire in India, and the British captured his playbook.
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The First Carnatic War and the Revelation at the Adyar River
At the Adyar river in 1746 a thousand French led muskets broke ten thousand of the Nawab's horsemen and revealed the secret that would conquer India.
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The French Arrive: Pondicherry and the Compagnie des Indes
France's Compagnie des Indes built Pondicherry into the finest European town in India and pioneered every device of empire the British would later perfect.
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Nadir Shah 1739: The Sack of Delhi and the Broken Spell
Nadir Shah's 1739 invasion shattered the Mughal army at Karnal, drowned Delhi in blood and carried off the Peacock Throne, breaking the spell of empire.
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