Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952 / Cheap-Library.com

Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952 / Cheap-Library.com





Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952
Timothy Brook, Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi

Opium is more than just a drug extracted from poppies. Over the past two centuries it has been a palliative medicine, an addictive substance, a powerful mechanism for concentrating and transferring wealth and power between nations, and the anchor for a now vanished sociocultural world in and around China.

 Opium Regimes integrates the pioneering research of sixteen scholars to show that the opium trade was not purely a British operation but involved Chinese merchants, Chinese state agents, and Japanese imperialists as well.

The book presents a coherent historical arc that moves from British imperialism in the nineteenth century, to Chinese capital formation and state making at the turn of the century, to Japanese imperialism through the 1930s and 1940s, and finally to the apparent resolution of China's opium problem in the early 1950s. 

Together these essays show that the complex interweaving of commodity trading, addiction, and state intervention in opium's history refigured the historical face of East Asia more profoundly than any other commodity.

$6.85 (USD)
Publisher:
Release date: 2000
Format: PDF
Size: 2.94 MB
Language: English
Pages: 456
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A dense volume, faultlessly edited and with a remarkable bibliography--in short, a reference work on the state of research in an area the scope of which is in constant expansion. In Opium Regimes can be found both the results and, conversely, the weaknesses of the history of opium in Asia."--China Perspectives

From the Back Cover

Opium is more than just a drug extracted from poppies. Over the past two centuries it has been a palliative medicine, an addictive substance, a high-value commodity, a powerful mechanism for concentrating and transferring wealth and power between nations, and the anchor of a now vanished sociocultural world in and around China. Opium Regimes integrates the pioneering research of sixteen scholars to show that the opium trade was not purely a British operation but involved Chinese merchants, Chinese state agents, and Japanese imperialists as well. The book presents a coherent historical arc that moves from British imperialism in the nineteenth century to Chinese capital formation and state making at the turn of the century to Japanese imperialism through the 1930s and 1940s and finally to the apparent resolution of China's opium problem in the early 1950s.

Avoiding the Eurocentric focus of earlier approaches, this volume relies on the concept of "opium regimes" in Asia -- the regional and local systems that states, corporations, and civic associations set up either to profit from or suppress the opium trade. By focusing on these opium regimes, the authors are able to investigate the systematic and comprehensive character of drug-control structures, stressing their capacity for operating in the political realm. The complex interweaving of commodity trading, addiction, and state intervention in opium's history refigured the historical face of East Asia more profoundly than any other commodity.

About the Author

Timothy Brook is Professor of History at the University of Toronto and the author most recently of the prizewinning The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China (California, 1998). Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi is Professor of History at York University in Toronto and the author of Japanese Loyalism Reconstrued (1995), among other works.

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Paperback: 456 pages

Publisher: University of California Press; First edition (August 7, 2000)

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Top Reviews

Rini

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably one of the most well-rounded books...

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2013

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This book is an excellent collection of essays about opium trade and traffic in Asia. My personal interest is in Japanese history and opium trade, and this book was an excellent resource. Of course the primary writer for Japan was Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, and the majority of the book was about China, but given the circumstances that can be forgiven.

The opium trade beginning with British Imperial interests and then Japanese Imperial interests are covered in this book. It also covers the effects and how the Chinese government finally dealt with the aftermath of wide-spread addiction.

If you are interested in historical details about opium in Asia, this is an excellent book. Wakabayashi's coverage of the Japan and its avoidance, and their eventual use of opium for imperial gain is extremely interesting. The information about China's addiction through the British and the changes in China thanks to opium was also interesting. This is a book that will open your eyes to the systems if you did not know about Japan's opium hold on China and how Korea was involved in it. Each of the essays holds their own, and it is a scholarly discussion overall. Regardless, if you are interested in opium in the 19th-20th Centuries, this is a must read.

One of the better books I've read, along with Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750-1950 (Asia's Transformations) and The Opium Empire: Japanese Imperialism and Drug Trafficking in Asia, 1895-1945 on the topic. Others (mostly in China) would be Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729-1850 (Harvard East Asian Monographs) and Sushila Narsimhan's "Japanese Perceptions of China in the Nineteenth Century." Japanese Imperialist opium trade was my interest and it's reflected here.

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6 people found this helpful

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Rusty G SATX

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're interested in commerce and history, this is for you

Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2012

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This book is a fantastic read. Not in the swashbuckling sense....go to "Flashman and the Dragon" for that...but as good, riveting history. Goes right along with "Flashman" by George M. Fraser and "Opium War" by Peter Ward Fay. If you're into commerce, history, economics, you'll enjoy this book. More fiction to read alongside this: Amitav Ghosh, Ibis Trilogy. Opium Regimes gets you right down and dirty into the Den.

5 people found this helpful

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