Smoke And Ashes Smoke And Ashes

Smoke And Ashes

Opium's Hidden Histories

    • € 14,99

Beschrijving uitgever

'An acerbic, compelling and always accessible account of how opium corrupted the world' TLS

'The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday Telegraph


When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story.

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memoir and a history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China and redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the Empire's financial survival. Yet tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, of America's most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.

Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Amitav Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

GENRE
Geschiedenis
UITGEGEVEN
2024
15 februari
TAAL
EN
Engels
LENGTE
416
Pagina's
UITGEVER
John Murray Press
GROOTTE
19,7
MB
The Nutmeg's Curse The Nutmeg's Curse
2021
Sea of Poppies Sea of Poppies
2009
De vloek van de nootmuskaat De vloek van de nootmuskaat
2023
River of Smoke River of Smoke
2011
The Glass Palace The Glass Palace
2001
The Glass Palace The Glass Palace
2016
How the World Made the West How the World Made the West
2024
The Committed The Committed
2021
The Habsburgs The Habsburgs
2020
The Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War
2023
Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
2021
Otherlands Otherlands
2022