Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729-1850

by David Anthony Bello

The British opium trade along China's seacoast has come to symbolize China's century-long descent into political and social chaos. In the standard historical narrative, opium is the primary medium through which China encountered the economic, social, and political institutions of the West. Opium, however, was not a Sino-British problem confined to southeastern China. It was, rather, an empire-wide crisis, and its spread among an ethnically diverse...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674016491
• ISBN13: 9780674016491
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 361 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.2"