Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Patronage and Profit: The East India Company Career of Sir Robert Cowan in Bombay and the Western Indian Ocean, C. 1719-35

Patronage and Profit: The East India Company Career of Sir Robert Cowan in Bombay and the Western Indian Ocean, C. 1719-35

Teggin, Edward Owen

Paperback

BoatingGeneral World History

PREORDER - Expected ship date August 31, 2026

ISBN10: 946428126X
ISBN13: 9789464281262
Publisher: Sidestone Press
Published: Aug 31 2026
Pages: 200
Language: English
The Indian Ocean era unfolds through Sir Robert Cowan's ascent, revealing how personal ambition shaped imperial power.

In the early eighteenth century, the Indian Ocean was a dynamic crossroads of commerce, politics, and shifting power. European trading companies, Indigenous rulers and polities, and long-established merchant networks all competed and collaborated across a region stretching from the Red Sea to the South China Sea. This book explores that world through the remarkable career of one man: Sir Robert Cowan, an Irishman who rose from provincial origins in Derry to become Governor of Bombay and one of the East India Company's most influential servants.

Drawing on Cowan's extraordinarily rich archive, one of the most extensive personal collections surviving for any Company servant, this book follows his journey from Derry to Bombay, and all stops in between. Through his letters, accounts, and private dealings, we see not only the daily realities of Company rule but also the vibrant network of personal relationships, patronage ties, and commercial opportunities that shaped life in the early modern Indian Ocean world. Cowan's pursuit of wealth, his role in diplomacy and security, and his navigation of both Company policy and private trade reveal the blurred lines between public duty and personal ambition that defined the age.

Intended for readers interested in the history of empire, maritime trade, and the East India Company, this book offers a fresh perspective on a formative period in the Indian Ocean. By using Cowan's life and career as a lens, it illuminates the human connections and competing interests that underpinned the expansion of colonial power, and places Irish involvement in empire at the centre of British early modern colonial history.

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