The Corporation that Changed the World

This book offers a fascinating account of the forerunner of the modern multinational: the British East India Company (1600-1874). Nick Robins shows how the East India Company pioneered the model of the corporation that we see today. Its innovations included the shareholder model of ownership, and the administrative framework of the modern firm. Global in reach, it achieved market dominance in Asia, trailblazing the British Empire in the East. In the process, the company shocked its age with the scale of its executive malpractice, stock market excess and human rights abuse. Offering a popular history of one of the world's most famous companies, Nick Robins shows what it teaches us about corporations today. Ultimately, the East India Company succumbed to popular protest and outright rebellion, first in the Boston Tea Party and then in the Indian Mutiny. For Robins, the Company's legacy shows how essential it is to break-up today's over-mighty corporations, introduce new legal duties on corporate executives and establish effective mechanisms to hold companies to account wherever they operate.