A Swedish diplomat’s assessment of the British Empire in India, 1840

£220.00

Biörnstjerna, Count: The British Empire in the East. John Murray [London] 1840 1st English edition 8vo

Folding map (reduced from John Arrowsmith’s larger map of Central Asia), folding map of India (with table of chronological acquisitions of British), xii.258pp. Original publisher’s cloth gilt titled to spine with blind stamping to boards, wear at extremities but sound, marks to boards, damp staining affecting top corners of boards and endpapers but not penetrating the text block, endpapers split along the hinge but holding well on the cords. both maps foxed. The work was translated by H Evans-Lloyd from the Swedish (1838) of Lt-Gen Count Bjornstjerna, who was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Great Britain. To his history of the British acquisitions in India the diplomat has added reflections and political views on the present state, and probable destiny of this Empire, which are characterized by the foresight of the statesman and the sagacity of the military man, who, with an accurate acquaintance of the localities, embraces at one view the vast regions of Central Asia, and the powers which might there engage in a conflict with the British forces in India. An early contribution to the Great Game debate. jan7/4

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