Presentation: Call of Empire

The Town Hall at Windsor, 3125 Windsor Boulevard, Vero Beach, FL
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Alexander Charles Baillie will give a presentation on his new book, Call of Empire: From the Highlands to Hindostan. The event will be presented by Ruth and Ken Scheer at The Town Hall at Windsor in Florida.

Drawing on thorough research of the military, political, and economic events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and an extensive collection of family letters that depict the lives and personalities of his ancestors, Alexander Charles Baillie brings the history of British India to life. The compelling documents, lost for over a century with many reproduced here, reveal changing race relations and social attitudes, cultural tensions, military and civilian battles, economic pressures, and the rise and decline of the East India Company. Call of Empire focuses especially on two members of the family - William of Dunain, a military officer, and John of Leys, a civil servant - whose numerous adventures and misadventures impart provocative clues about the workings of the empire and the daily lives of its most influential figures.

Alexander Charles Baillie is chancellor emeritus of Queen’s University, former chair and chief executive officer of TD Bank. He lives in Toronto.