On Merchant Kings

An interesting look at informal imperialism through the biographies of leaders of six chartered companies (Dutch East India Company, Dutch West India Company/New Netherlands, British East India Company, Russian America Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, and the British South Africa Company). I don’t know that this is the most effective way to tell this story, as it frequently feels disjointed and without much overlap. Moreover, Bown’s idea of the “Age of Heroic Commerce” is nonsense. The “Age of Commerce” and “Commerical Revolution” makes sense, but “heroic?” “Heroic” for whom? The workers laboring in the companies, indigenous peoples, or the peasants at home? I don’t think so. It works well as a nationalistic slogan, but Bown spends plenty of time explaining why these men weren’t heroic, so I don’t quite know where this is a useful term to conceptualize the period.

That being said, most of these narratives are not well-known, so it makes for some interesting reading.