Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories

Opium may be a small plant but it has ties to colonialism, corporations, powerful families and institutions in the US, and contemporary globalism. In this “object biography” of opium, Ghosh explores its economic and cultural impact on Britain, India, and China, and how those effects still linger today. With sweeping scope and intricate detail, Ghosh lays out how the British Empire exported opium from India to China as a way of sustaining the Empire, regardless of the cost of addiction to those they exploited. Literature lovers will notice many cameos of authors through the ages in these pages (Orwell, Kipling, Dickens, and more); R. F. Kuang’s historical fantasy Babel would make an excellent fictional companion to Ghosh’s nonfiction work.