Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism

In this ambitious survey, Duke University historian Stern (The Company-State) chronicles the rise and fall of British corporate colonialism from the 16th century to the 1980s. The driving force behind England’s “brand of overseas expansion” was the joint-stock corporation, a commercial entity that “could draw funds from pretty much anywhere and anyone... and thus amass capital, mobilize resources, tolerate risk and loss, and manage information on a far greater scale than most any self- or family-financed enterprise, and sometimes even governments.” Organizing the narrative into six distinct “ages” spanning the period between the 1555 incorporation of the Russia Company and the 1982 Falklands War, Stern tracks the creation, evolution, influence, and demise of the East India Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, the South Seas Company, and others. Throughout, he makes clear that the dividing line between commercial enterprise and state activity was exceedingly difficult to locate; the East India Company, for example, went from “chasing down under- and unpaid subscriptions” in its early years to issuing bank notes, raising an army, and governing millions of people. Lay readers may be overwhelmed by the cascade of corporate reshufflings and obscure legislative acts seeking to rein in the power of joint-stock corporations, but Stern is a tireless researcher and an accomplished explainer of geopolitical and financial matters. This is a consequential reconsideration of the history of colonialism. (May)