Historian and bestselling author William Dalrymple will speak about his latest book, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. This annual lecture is hosted by The School of Global Affairs and King’s Business School as part of the Chevening Financial Services Leadership Programme.

The lecture will be chaired by Professor Niraja Jayal, Avantha Chair, King’s India Institute.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the Anatomy Museum. 

About William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prize-winning Return of a King. His most recent book, The Anarchy, was long listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019, and short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal for Military History, the Tata Book of the Year (Non-fiction) and the Historical Writers Association Book Award 2020. It was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations.

Dalrymple has been awarded five honorary doctorates, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton, Brown and Oxford. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the Guardian. In 2018, he was presented with the prestigious President’s Medal by the British Academy and was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers for 2020 by Prospect. He is a founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

About the Chevening Financial Services Leadership Programme

The School of Global Affairs and the King’s Business School, King’s College London are proud to deliver the Chevening Financial Services Leadership Programme, a UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office fellowship scheme for India, aimed at mid-career financial services professionals with demonstrable leadership potential.

Senior Leadership

• Professor Alexandru Preda (Director), School of Business and Management
• Dr Kriti Kapila (Director), King’s India Institute