Overview

From its rise in the 1830s to its pinnacle in the 1930s, the opium trade was a guiding force in the Chinese political economy. Opium money was inextricably bound up in local, national, and imperial finances, and the people who piloted the trade were integral to the fabric of Chinese society. In this book, Peter Thilly narrates the dangerous lives and shrewd business operations of opium traffickers in southeast China, situating them within a global history of capitalism. By tracing the evolution of the opium trade from clandestine offshore agreements in the 1830s, to multi-million dollar prohibition bureau contracts in the 1930s, Thilly demonstrates how the modernizing Chinese state was infiltrated, manipulated, and profoundly transformed by opium profiteers. Opium merchants carried the drug by sea, over mountains, and up rivers, with leading traders establishing monopolies over trade routes and territories and assembling ""opium armies"" to protect their businesses. Over time, and as their ranks grew, these organizations became more bureaucratized and militarized, mimicking-and then eventually influencing, infiltrating, or supplanting-the state. Through the chaos of revolution, warlordism, and foreign invasion, opium traders diligently expanded their power through corruption, bribery, and direct collaboration with the state. Drug traders mattered-not only in the seedy ways in which they have been caricatured but also crucially as shadowy architects of statecraft and China's evolution on the world stage.

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9781503634107

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Reviews

Despite a vast literature on its eponymous wars, the social history of opium remains largely untold. Thilly's book shows us opium as crop, as commodity, as object of regulation, and as the source of great fortunes. We see the drug touching the lives of a huge range of people: farmers, smugglers, bureaucrats and 'opium kings.' It's a fascinating story, well-told, and rich in contemporary overtones. -- Michael Szonyi * Harvard University * Peter Thilly's meticulous study of opium smuggling networks in coastal China is an invaluable addition to the rapidly growing literature on the nineteenth century opium trade, and it throws much-needed light on some under-researched aspects of the connections between drugs and capitalism. -- Amitav Ghosh * author of <i>Sea of Poppies</i> *

"""Despite a vast literature on its eponymous wars, the social history of opium remains largely untold. Thilly's book shows us opium as crop, as commodity, as object of regulation, and as the source of great fortunes. We see the drug touching the lives of a huge range of people: farmers, smugglers, bureaucrats and 'opium kings.' It's a fascinating story, well-told, and rich in contemporary overtones.""—Michael Szonyi, Harvard University ""Peter Thilly's meticulous study of opium smuggling networks in coastal China is an invaluable addition to the rapidly growing literature on the nineteenth century opium trade, and it throws much-needed light on some under-researched aspects of the connections between drugs and capitalism.""—Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies ""Using an expansive array of evidence drawn together from collections on three continents, including rare materials from Chinese-language archives, Thilly offers insights into the everyday mechanics of what was largely an illegal and morally reprehensible business. His emphasis on how this trade worked sets the book apart from the many previous political and military histories of opium in China. It is a refreshing and valuable contribution to this literature, as well as a landmark history of illicit enterprise in Asia.""—Peter Gibson, Asian Studies Review"

Despite a vast literature on its eponymous wars, the social history of opium remains largely untold. Thilly's book shows us opium as crop, as commodity, as object of regulation, and as the source of great fortunes. We see the drug touching the lives of a huge range of people: farmers, smugglers, bureaucrats and 'opium kings.' It's a fascinating story, well-told, and rich in contemporary overtones. -Michael Szonyi, Harvard University Peter Thilly's meticulous study of opium smuggling networks in coastal China is an invaluable addition to the rapidly growing literature on the nineteenth century opium trade, and it throws much-needed light on some under-researched aspects of the connections between drugs and capitalism. -Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies

Author Information

Peter Thilly is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi.

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