Calcutta on the Potomac: An East India Nabob in the Early American Republic

FAIN: FB-55518-11

Rosemarie Zagarri
George Mason University (Fairfax, VA 22030-4444)

This book project seeks to examine what the United States, a new nation that had once constituted a crucial component of the first British empire, learned from Britain's second empire in India in the decades following American independence. Thomas Law, a British East India Company nabob who settled in the United States in 1794, provides the vehicle for examining these issues. Shaped by his experiences in India, Law brought a distinctive imperial vision to his adopted country which he expressed in his business ventures, personal relationships, and civic contributions. Despite Law's uniqueness, his life also reflected many larger historical patterns. Like other individuals in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Law was a boundary crosser, a person who travelled at will between continents and nations. His life reveals a past world in which globalization was already well underway more than two centuries ago.