Synopses & Reviews
Drugs and Empires introduces new research from a range of historians that re-evaluates the relationship between intoxicants and empires in the modern world. It re-examines controversies about such issues as the Asian opium trade or the sale of alcohol in Africa. It addresses new areas of research, including the impact of imperial drugs profits on American history, or the place of African states in the development of international regulations. The outcome is to provoke new perspectives on both drugs and empires.
Synopsis
Drugs and Empires introduces new research from a range of historians that re-evaluates the relationship between intoxicants and empires in the modern world. It re-examines controversies about such issues as the Asian opium trade or the sale of alcohol in Africa. It addresses new areas of research, including the impact of imperial drugs profits on American history, or the place of African states in the development of international regulations. The outcome is to provoke new perspectives on both drugs and empires.
About the Author
JAMES MILLS is Director of the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, Glasgow, and ESRC Research Fellow/Senior Lecturer in History, University of Strathclyde, UK. His publications include Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'native-only' lunatic asylums of British India, 1857-1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2000) and Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade and Prohibition 1800-1928 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005). PATRICIA BARTON is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, University of Strathclyde, UK. Her publications include The Quacks and Adulterers: Colonial South Asia's Other Drug Problem, (Forthcoming 2008).
Table of Contents
Introduction--J.H.Mills & P. Barton * PART 1: CONSUMPTION * China, British imperialism and the myth of the 'Opium Plague'--FDikötter, L.Laamann & X.Zhou * Developing Habits: Opium and Tobacco in the Indonesian Archipelago, c. 1619-c. 1794--G.B.Souza * Early British encounters with the Indian opium eater--R.Newman * 'Cannot we induce the people of England to eat opium?' The moral economy of opium in colonial India--J.F.Richards * PART 2: CONTROL * Opium and the Trading World of Western India in the Early Nineteenth Century--A.Farooqui * Dangerous Drinks and the Colonial State: 'Illicit' Gin Prohibition and Control in Colonial Nigeria--C.J.Korieh * Empire and Excise: Drugs and drink revenue and the fate of states in south Asia--M.J.Gilbert * Powders, Potions and Tablets: The 'quinine fraud' in British India, 1890 to 1939--P.Barton * PART 3: 'HIGH' POLITICS * Colonial Africa and the international politics of cannabis: Egypt, South Africa and the origins of global control--J.H.Mills * 'A grave danger to the peace of the East': Opium and Imperial Rivalry in China, 1895-1920--W.O.Walker III * 'Wolf by the Ears': The Dilemmas of Imperial Opium Policymaking in the 20th Century--W.B.McAllister * The Trade-Off: Chinese Opium Traders and Antebellum Reform in the United States, 1815-1860--K.Gray