Watch: Author and historian William Dalrymple at Express Adda

Willam Dalrymple is the guest at the Express Adda in New Delhi, Tuesday.

“A state in the guise of a merchant” — Edmund Burke’s description of the East India Company could well explain the theme of William Dalrymple’s latest book, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, that was published in September this year. In it, Dalrymple explores how the East India Company rose to become a military and economic conglomerate following the collapse of the Mughals in the period between 1739 and 1803.

Dalrymple is the guest at the Express Adda in New Delhi on Tuesday. He is in conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director, The Indian Express Group, and Seema Chishti, Deputy Editor. Born in Scotland in 1965, Dalrymple was educated at Ampleforth and Trinity College, Cambridge. While still in college, he wrote his first book, In Xanadu, at the age of 22; it won the 1990 Yorkshire Post Best First Work Award and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize.