Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company

For 213 years, beginning around 1700, the ``incorrigible pioneering'' of merchant traders of the East India Company furthered the ``peculiarly diffuse character'' of the British Empire. British author Keay tells an ambitious story with sweep and brio, encompassing the company's origins as a ``bane of bedraggled pioneers'' in search of spices in the remote Indonesian archipelago; its role in the 1690 founding of Calcutta (an episode of ``commercial greed and political mayhem''); and the opening up of China in 1700, which was to become the company's most profitable trade. Keay not only portays some of the adventurers and potentates who encountered one another but also grasps the details of trade, some more momentous than others: one missive from London to India mixed declarations of war with Spain and complaints about a bar bill. The company's monopoly charter was eventually broken not by rival traders but by British manufacturers wanting more overseas outlets for their products. If, as Keay notes, there are ``enough incomplete histories of the Company to justify a health warning,'' then this book is a salubrious contribution. Photos not seen by PW. (May)