Laurence Sulivan embodied the East India Company. He lived at the Company's heart in the city of London and controlled a vast commercial and political empire during Britain's 'Commercial Revolution', in the late eighteenth century, and rise to superpower status and supremacy in India and South and Southeast Asia. He fought to ensure the Company's very survival and to preserve its chartered rights. In the process he thwarted the designs of individuals and governments alike. _x000D__x000D_George McGilvary presents a fascinating examination of the rise to great eminence of this mysterious Company servant of Irish origins, and of an obsession with power. Sulivan was 'kingmaker', politician, manipulator and negotiator at the centre of the eighteenth century public-private nexus in business and government. Deeply involved in British and Indian affairs, he was friend and confident of Chatham, Clive, Burke and Pitt the Younger and - very importantly - protector of Warren Hastings. He was the Company's guiding spirit and its most able executive, involved in key political, financial and imperial developments. He shaped policy, initiated reforms; and was central to how the organisation and the fluctuating ministries related to each other during a period of great political and economic upheaval, as well as European and global war. _x000D__x000D_Guardian of the East India Company paints a vivid and convincing picture of a supremely influential and colourful business figure as he controlled the most powerful private company of his day.