India’s rich and complex history often shines a spotlight on empires and emperors—Ashoka, Akbar, Shivaji, Tipu Sultan—but ...

That meant within decades the East India Company was becoming a sovereign entity in its own right.: had the power to raise revenue, to make war and peace, to mint its own coins, to administer justice.

The scene was set for the East India Company’s gravest challenge yet. An episode that’s become known to the British as the Indian Mutiny but to Indians it was the First War of Independence.