Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 335 ratings

Price: 18.8

Last update: 09-02-2024


Top reviews from the United States

Wu James
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book every Chinese should read
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
Amitav Ghosh wrote a fantastic book about opium regarding its impacts to China as well as how the fortunes created by this poison thing via Americans who engaged in the poison trade in Canton.

The most important messages and research Ghosh produced in this book is to disclose all the wealth and financial impacts derived from the American opium traders who bought the money back to the America to contribute the industrial development there and then.

Every Chinese should read this book to know the significance of the opium trade and be enlightened and properly educated as how to view the world and how Chinese be viewed by others.

An extremely objective viewpoint in possession of the author to come up with such a great book!!

Not radical nor hateful but peaceful representation of a historical fact cross India to China then onward to American!!
Francis O Walker
4.0 out of 5 stars Go East Young Man
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2024
This book enlivens the suppressed economic history of opium with well researched corroborative detail. It begins with British colonial powers in the 1800s who standardized its production in India and then experienced its wealth generating properties in China. This led to a feeding frenzy which even attracted well-connected Americans. In choosing the Far East over the West, where the saying advises them to go, these young men acquired riches that made their names famous: Forbes, Brown, as in the University, and Delano, as in FDR’s grandfather. The book makes painfully striking parallels with the modern day Sackler family and wisely points out how recognizing of the hypocrisy needed to hide the opium economy likely influenced the writing of Eric Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) and Rabindranath Tagore. Oddly, the author suggests that poppies have agency, along with mushrooms and cannabis (but he ignores tobacco), and posits, without evidence, that their qualities, which border on ‘mystical’, could mitigate the lure of opium. Two chapters wander off on unrelated themes: a “Lost Cause” lament about British military success and a well-argued but superfluous deconstruction of classic English gardens. While the book is imaginative, well written and instructive, this reader could have done without its gratuitous asides.
Alexa Fleckenstein M.D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Most interesting historic-political read ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2024
... an eye-opener. Extremely well written and entertaining despite its grave contents. Should be on EVERYBODY's reading list. Educating us about our past ... and future.
Max Goldensohn
5.0 out of 5 stars meaningful history of a little known fact of economics
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2024
Ghosh describes to good effect the start, development and consequences of British colonial cultivation of an opium export industry and how it financed the expansion of the British empire. Parallels with modern drug trade including opiate painkillers reveal important lessons about greed and power.
Ajit Dey
5.0 out of 5 stars Very revelatory of Britain's inhumane colonial policies
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2024
Even though I was aware of Britain's self-serving colonial economic policies, I didn't realize the extent to which the British went to aggrandize themselves, even to the extent of immiserating and causing the death of millions. Amitav Ghosh's scholarly research, presented in his characteristic eloquence, was an eye-opener.
Susan B. Iwanisziw
4.0 out of 5 stars What we didn't learn in school -- or anywhere else until now
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2024
This historical and partly autobiographical account of opiates and their enduring power of destruction turns on the insidious relationship of opium with Enlightenment principles. It is an eye-popping read. I knew about the British Opium wars with China. Still, I had been blithely unaware of Britain's audacity in pushing opium production in India and addiction abroad to fill the empire's coffers and label Asian people as degenerates. Not only were Britain, the Netherlands, and other European nations profiting hugely from peddling opium as they ruined farmers as well as users' lives, but many American tycoons lauded as astute businessmen also got their start by investing in or operating opium factories.
In short, the West planted the seeds of the current world struggle with narco wars, addiction, broken lives, and rampant criminality. No Westerner has the right to any firm moral ground from which to attack Central and South American drug runners (whose violence depends on firearms obtained from US sources) given the West's long and enduring obsession with conquest, violence, and profit. And let's not forget Purdue Pharma.
As Mr. Ghosh observes at one point, "The staggering reality is that many of the cities that are now pillars of the modern globalized economy--Mumbai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai were initially sustained by opium." His thesis insists that the poppy is one of history's most powerful agents because of its "unmatched ability to propagate itself by bonding with humanity's darkest propensities."
That is, he proposes that opium and its derivatives have colonized us. This history, whose endnotes are almost as lengthy as the narrative, makes a salient point about our wilful divorce from the reality of our personal and cultural dark propensities.
Annarella
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2024
A fascinating, informative and thought provoking book that mixes travelogue, history and a reflection on how opium is still a way to keep people quiet and escaping reality.
I love this author and this is an excellent book that I strongly recommend
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine
dew
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly unfocused.
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2024
The history presented is fascinating. Unfortunately, the work is diluted by sometimes frustratingly verbose and tangential excursions…as well as being adulterated by recurrent promotion (even with inserted quotes) of the author’s own novels, and cultural commentary. As the book progresses, the author injects increasing doses of personal philosophy, without evidence. Maybe a popular best seller, but seems to be trying to be too many things in one. It was hard to finish. Not what I expected.

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