H. V. Bowen

Bio: H. V. Bowen is an academic researcher from Swansea University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Empire & Joint-stock company. The author has an hindex of 13, co-authored 30 publications receiving 488 citations. Previous affiliations of H. V. Bowen include Newcastle University & University of Leicester.

The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Relationships: city, state, and empire 3. Relationships: government and Company 4. People: investors in empire 5. People: company men 6. Methods: an empire in writing 7. Methods: the government of empire 8. Methods: the management of trade 9. Influences: the Company and the British economy Afterword.

The worlds of the East India Company

Abstract: Throws light on significant aspects of the Company's history. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARITIME HISTORY The English East India Company was one of the most powerful commercial companies ever to have existed. It laid the foundations of the British Empire in South Asia and thus lies at the very heart of the interlinked histories of Britain and Asia. This first multi-disciplinary history of the Company to be published commemorates the four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of this unique and extraordinary institution. Historians of art, culture, cartography, empire, politics, the sea, and trade, explore the origins, operation, and influence of the Company as an organisation that remained firmly engaged in maritime commercial activity in many different spheres, even as it acted as a powerful agent of territorial expansion on the Indian subcontinent. H.V. BOWEN is senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Leicester; NIGEL RIGBY and MARGARETTE LINCOLN work in the research department of the National Maritime Museum, London.

British conceptions of global empire, 1756–83

Abstract: (1998). British conceptions of global empire, 1756–83. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 1-27.

Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics, 1757-1773.

Abstract: List of tables Preface List of abbreviations Introduction 1. Traders into sovereigns: the East India Company, 1757-1765 2. Perceptions of empire 3. The policy-makers: Parliament and the East India Company 4. Crown and Company (I): the Diwani and the inquiry of 1767 5. Crown and Company (II): foreign relations, 1766-1769 6. Attempts at reform (I): civil, military, and judicial affairs, 1767-1772 7. Attempts at reform (II): trade and revenue, 1767-1772 8. The East India Company crisis of 1772 9. Response to crisis (I): high politics and the committees of inquiry, 1772-1773 10. Response to crisis (II): trade, finance, and reform 11. The final act? the passage of Lord North's East India legislation, 1773 Conclusion Select bibliography Index.

Sinews of trade and empire: the supply of commodity exports to the East India Company during the late eighteenth century

Abstract: ome contemporaries described the late eighteenth-century East India Company as a machine or engine driving forward the expansion of the British empire, state, and system of public finance. But although the hydra-like corporation had been elevated far above the status of a straightforward trading company, few suggested that the Company also powered the growth of the wider metropolitan economy to any great degree, and certainly no one believed that the eastern empire offered much support for the development of British industry. However, this is seemingly at odds with evidence based upon customs figures which suggests that the export trade to 'East India' made considerable progress over the course of the eighteenth century, notably during the 1760s, and again during the late 1780s and early 1790s. In aggregate terms, the annual average official value of the home produce and manufactures

What Is International Law

Abstract: International law is a social historical legal tradition that emerged and spread over time to deal with matters between and across polities. This statement may appear obvious, but its full implications point to a thorough reconstruction of theoretical accounts of international law. Part I recounts how Bentham inadvertently created an enduring set of theoretical problems for international law. Part II describes international law as a social historical legal tradition, showing its European origins and diffusion with imperialism, and exposing three slants in international law. Part III broadens the lens to sketch the history of interaction between and across polities and how this has been managed. Part IV details contemporary efforts to deal with this interaction through organizations and transnational law and regulation. With this background in place, Part V elaborates a series of theoretical clarifications. First I unravel several confusions that result from construing state law and international law as parallel categories and conflating system with category. Then I explain why international law is a form of law, although not a unified hierarchical system. Contrary to common perceptions, furthermore, I show that state law and international law are not and have never been separate systems. Finally, I clarify the relationship between international law and transnational law and regulation. Aspects of this theoretical reconstruction may initially appear surprising, but they follow from the insight that international law is a social historical tradition.

A Cultural Theory of International Relations

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Fear, interest and honor 3. The spirit and its expression 4. The ancient world 5. Medieval Europe 6. From Sun King to Revolution 7. Imperialism and World War I 8. World War II 9. Hitler to Bush and beyond 10. General findings and conclusions.

Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal

Abstract: Robert Travers' analysis of British conquests in late eighteenth-century India shows how new ideas were formulated about the construction of empire. After the British East India Company conquered the vast province of Bengal, Britons confronted the apparent anomaly of a European trading company acting as an Indian ruler. Responding to a prolonged crisis of imperial legitimacy, British officials in Bengal tried to build their authority on the basis of an 'ancient constitution', supposedly discovered among the remnants of the declining Mughal Empire. In the search for an indigenous constitution, British political concepts were redeployed and redefined on the Indian frontier of empire, while stereotypes about 'oriental despotism' were challenged by the encounter with sophisticated Indian state forms. This highly original book uncovers a forgotten style of imperial state-building based on constitutional restoration, and in the process opens up new points of connection between British, imperial and South Asian history.

Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850

Abstract: Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competitive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views, which hold that divergence occurred because Europe possessed superior markets, rationality, science or institutions. It offers instead a groundbreaking rereading of global economic development that ranges from India, Japan and China to Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire and from the textile and coal industries to the roles of science, technology and the state.