Outsourcing Empire by Professor Andrew Phillips


ISBN
9780691206196
Published
Binding
Paperback
Pages
272
Dimensions
235 x 156mm

How chartered company-states spearheaded European expansion and helped create the world's first genuinely global order.

From Spanish conquistadors to British colonialists, the prevailing story of European empire-building has focused on the rival ambitions of competing states. But as Outsourcing Empire shows, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, company-states - not sovereign states - drove European expansion, building the world's first genuinely international system. Company-states were hybrid ventures: pioneering multinational trading firms run for profit, with founding charters that granted them sovereign powers of war, peace, and rule. Those like the English and Dutch East India Companies carved out corporate empires in Asia, while other company-states pushed forward European expansion through North America, Africa, and the South Pacific. In this comparative exploration, Andrew Phillips and J. C. Sharman explain the rise and fall of company-states, why some succeeded while others failed, and their role as vanguards of capitalism and imperialism.

In dealing with alien civilisations to the East and West, Europeans relied primarily on company-states to mediate geographic and cultural distances in trade and diplomacy. Emerging as improvised solutions to bridge the gap between European rulers' expansive geopolitical ambitions and their scarce means, company-states succeeded best where they could balance the twin imperatives of power and profit. Yet as European states strengthened from the late eighteenth century onward, and a sense of separate public and private spheres grew, the company-states lost their usefulness and legitimacy.

Bringing a fresh understanding to the ways cross-cultural relations were handled across the oceans, Outsourcing Empire examines the significance of company-states as key progenitors of the globalised world.
EOFY 2025 Book Frenzy
37.39
RRP: $43.99
15% off RRP


This product is unable to be ordered online. Please check in-store availability.
Instore Price: $43.99
Enter your Postcode or Suburb to view availability and delivery times.

Other Titles by Professor Andrew Phillips


You might also like

Empireworld
24.99
21.24
15% Off
Leadership
26.99
22.94
15% Off
The Barn
55.00
46.75
15% Off
The Playbook
39.99
33.99
15% Off
Inventing the Renaissance
59.99
50.99
15% Off
Empireworld
36.99
31.44
15% Off
Final Verdict
34.99
29.74
15% Off
Hunting the Falcon
39.99
33.99
15% Off

RRP refers to the Recommended Retail Price as set out by the original publisher at time of release.
The RRP set by overseas publishers may vary to those set by local publishers due to exchange rates and shipping costs.
Due to our competitive pricing, we may have not sold all products at their original RRP.