Close
'The East India Company at Home' book launch
26 February 2018, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Event Information
Open to
- All
Location
-
IAS Common Ground, Ground Floor, South Wing
On 26 February the Institute of Advanced Studies will host a book launch for The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857, which will be published in February 2018 by UCL Press. Edited by UCL History's Margot Finn, and by Kate Smith of the University of Birmingham, the book explores how empire in Asia shaped British country houses, their interiors, and the lives of their residents. Moving beyond conventional academic narratives, the book includes chapters from researchers based in a wide range of settings including archives and libraries, museums, heritage organisations, and family history research as well as universities.
Born out of a Leverhulme-funded research project led by Margot Finn, the volume focuses on the propertied families of the East India Company at the height of Company rule. From the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the outbreak of the Indian Uprising in 1857, objects, people, and wealth flowed to Britain from Asia. As men in Company service increasingly shifted their activities from trade to military expansion and political administration, a new population of civil servants, army officers, surveyors, and surgeons journeyed to India to make their fortunes. These Company men and their families acquired wealth, tastes, and identities in India, which travelled home with them to Britain. Their stories, the biographies of their Indian possessions and the narratives of the stately homes in Britain that came to house them, frame our explorations of imperial culture and its British legacies.
To celebrate the book's publication, the editors invite colleagues to join them for a launch event at the Institute of Advanced Studies on 26 February. As well as a brief overview of the book and an opportunity to hear from those who contributed to it, there will be wine and nibbles to enjoy.
An open access edition of the book will be free to download from UCL Press as of February 15.