Empire, Incorporated

Stern is a tireless researcher and an accomplished explainer of geopolitical and financial matters. This is a consequential reconsideration of the history of colonialism. * Publishers Weekly * Brilliant, ambitious, and often surprising. With great clarity and remarkable archival reach, Stern convincingly argues that it was joint-stock ‘venture colonialism’ that financed and drove the earliest attempts at establishing Tudor and Elizabethan colonies from Ulster to Spitsbergen, Virginia to ‘Cathay,’ and even a Puritan republic of the Bahamas. A remarkable contribution to the current global debate about empire and a small masterpiece of research and conceptual reimagining. -- William Dalrymple, author of <i>The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire</i> This is an extraordinary book of great erudition and vast scope. Stern has written the definitive work on how the British Empire was driven by the joint-stock company and the legal device of incorporation. This remarkable account of a dizzying number of corporations that drove imperial expansion will be unrivaled for many years to come. -- Andrew Fitzmaurice, author of <i>King Leopold’s Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century</i> Stern has written the most important book on the history of the company in the English-speaking world in over a century. Empire, Incorporated is a gift for historians and general readers alike. Lawyers and investment bankers—always looking for the next clever idea to structure a deal or a new commercial entity—will delight in all the examples this book provides, and profit from the cautionary tales that abound. -- Paul Halliday, author of <i>Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire</i>