Showing results for "Opium Wars" in Politics & Social Sciences

This comprehensive examination of the Opium Wars explores how what began as a trade dispute evolved into a pivotal moment in world history that transformed not only China but the entire international order. Through detailed analysis of the conflicts' origins, military campaigns, and lasting consequences, we see how these wars marked the beginning of modern China's relationship with the Western world and established patterns of international relations that would persist for over a century.

Known to mankind since prehistoric times, opium is arguably the oldest and most widely used narcotic. Opium: A History traces the drug's astounding impact on world culture - from its religious use by prehistoric peoples to its influence on the imaginations of the Romantic writers; from the earliest medical science to the Sino-British opium wars.

Opium's Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the "war on drugs." A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded?