A story of powerful empires, covert political machinations and bloody resistance, Sathnam Sanghera and William Dalrymple join us with the history of the world’s first corporate power.

We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a much more sinister reality. For it was not the British government that began seizing chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in the City of London.

How did the Mughal empire – which then generated just under half the world’s wealth – come to be replaced by the first global corporate power? And how does the legacy of British imperialism continue to shape life and culture in Britain today?

Bringing together Empireland author and Times columnist Sathnam Sanghera and bestselling award-winning historian William Dalrymple, this livestream event will tell a story that is barely taught in schools or mentioned in museums but is critically important to who we are as a nation in the 21st century.

Praise for the William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy:

‘Gorgeous, spellbinding and important’ – Sunday Times

‘Rampaging, brilliant, passionate history’ – Wall Street Journal

‘Magnificent … Dalrymple has uncovered sources never used before’ – Guardian

‘Vivid … unmatched … revolutionary … humane’ – Sunday Telegraph

Praise for Sathnam Sangera’s Empireland:

‘I only wish this book had been around when I was at school’ – Sadiq Khan

‘This remarkable book shines the brightest of lights into some of the darkest and most misunderstood corners of our shared history’ – James O’Brien

‘[Empireland] should be on the compulsory reading list of every secondary school in the country’ – John Simpson