Dalrymple draws from known sources and previously untranslated or unknown sources like the Shah Alam Nama, a biography of Shah Alam II, the Mughal emperor during most of the events, as well as the biography of Louis Laurent de Féderbe, a French military officer among the earliest chroniclers of European involvement in India.

Upon release, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company received generally positive reviews.

[2] Maya Jasanoff of The Guardian notes that the book is an "... energetic pageturner that marches from the counting house on to the battlefield, exploding patriotic myths along the way.

"[6] Madhumita Mazumdar writes in The Telegraph that "[t]he Anarchy remains a unique meditation on corporate avarice told with the deftness of a scholar and the charm of a raconteur.

It was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Bronze Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relation.