EAST INDIA MILITARY CALENDAR; Containing the Services of General & Field Officers of the Indian Army

This is one of the most valuable documents in the astonishing history of the rise of the Honourable British East India Company – ’John Company’ as it was nicknamed – from a small trading outfit clinging to a few Indian ports at the beginning of the 17th century to the effective ruler of India little more than two centuries later. This massive three volume work of 1823 consists of a ‘calendar’ – detailed biographies of the General and Field officers of the army that the company built up to protect and expand its Indian assets and possessions. Of necessity, therefore, it also contains accounts of the many campaigns and wars fought in the 18th and early 19th centuries as the Company tenaciously wrested control of India from, in turn, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and – not least – the native Indian Princes, sultans and maharajahs. Containing a wealth of information on the careers, characters and campaigns of the British military caste who won and ruled the jewel in the British Empire’s crown. This is a snapshot of John Company’s hugely powerful military arm at the very zenith of its power that no serious student of the Raj can possibly be without.