News

Empire Incorporated: The Corporations that built British Colonialism

BIHT Zoom Lecture: Monday 11 November 2024, 18:30-20:00 GMT

Valerie Haye, of the British in India Historical Trust, has supplied the following details of a zoom lecture being given on Monday 11 November by Philip Stern:

Empire Incorporated: The Corporations that built British Colonialism
Philip Stern
Monday 11 November 2024, 18:30-20:00 GMT (ZOOM)

‘This lecture challenges conventional wisdom about where power is held globally. Philip Stern argues that rather than playing a subordinate role, corporations took the lead in global expansion and administration. From Ireland to India, the Americas, Africa and Australia, British colonialism was above all the business of corporations. Corporations conceived, promoted, financed and governed overseas expansion, making claims over territory and peoples while ensuring that British and colonial society were invested, quite literally, in their ventures. Nor did venture capitalism cease with the end of empire. Its legacies raise questions about corporate power that are as relevant today as they were 400 years ago.

Philip Stern is Professor of History at Duke University, NC. He is a historian of the British Empire and author of The Company-State (2011) and Empire, Incorporated (2023).

Lectures are broadcast via Zoom and are available UK-wide and to an international audience. Lectures are recorded and uploaded to YouTube for two weeks. Links are emailed to all ticket-holders.

Tickets for this lecture cost £5. Click here to book tickets (online, by post, or by bank transfer)’.

Valerie Haye

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