Publishers Weekly
★ 01/29/2024
Bestseller Ghosh (The Great Derangement) offers up a scintillating and kaleidoscopic vision of opium’s role in the past several centuries of global history. Centered mainly on events leading to the Opium Wars—19th-century British military incursions to force China to legalize the already booming illicit import of opium grown by decree in British India—the book’s many startling revelations include the deep enmeshment of America’s 19th-century elite (names like Astor, Cabot, Forbes) in the opium trade, which Ghosh shows was covered up not only at the time, but by their heirs. Contending that this guilt-ridden secretiveness on the part of Western opium-peddlers has had a profound impact on historiography, Ghosh exhaustively demonstrates that the widespread influence of Chinese exports on global culture has been erased from historical memory alongside the drug-dealing that fueled it. (One fascinating chapter describes how many still-treasured 19th-century antiques in the West, like supposed “Shaker” furniture, were mass produced in Guangzhou workshops; another shows that the “English garden” is entirely a Chinese invention.) Drawing on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s thinking regarding plant agency, Ghosh deepens his analysis further to contend that opium is itself an agent of history, distinguished by its cyclical activity (parallels between the 19th-century Chinese addiction epidemic and the recent U.S. opioid crisis serve as an example). Exquisitely written and packed with astonishing insight, this is a must-read. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"[A] bracing new history of the global opium trade . . . Ghosh’s tentacular history embraces opium’s entanglement with furniture, architecture, gardens and its role in modern wars. His forensic analysis of opium-factory paintings is particularly fascinating . . . But it’s Ghosh’s big-picture thinking that has made his nonfiction so influential . . . [A] huge achievement." —Delia Falconer, The New York Times Book Review
“Ghosh’s impressive history of the opium industry is an attempt to acknowledge ‘the historical agency of botanical matter’ . . . As Smoke and Ashes shows in forceful, even thundering, prose, the Boston Brahmins and the East India Company unleashed an evil they could not restrain.” —Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
"Ghosh’s elegant history of the plant’s influence is both a tribute to what he calls 'the historical agency of botanical matter' and a reckoning with the imperial past." —The Economist
“Propulsive and revelatory . . . A skilled storyteller, [Ghosh] triumphs in laying out the shame of the British empire’s opium trade for all to see.” —Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times
“Expansive and thoughtful . . . Smoke and Ashes is a lovely blend of historical writing, travelogue and personal reflection.” —Peter Frankopan, The Spectator
“A scintillating and kaleidoscopic vision of opium’s role in the past several centuries of global history . . . Exquisitely written and packed with astonishing insight, this is a must-read.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Ghosh's literary prowess supercharges this eye-opening excavation of the full extent of the opium-industrial complex." —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
Kirkus Reviews
2023-11-17
An insightful study of the opium trade as a shadowy background to the rise and fall of nations.
Indian novelist Ghosh became interested in the opium trade while doing research for his acclaimed Ibis trilogy, and this book could be considered both background addendum to those novels and a stand-alone book. “It is a measure of opium’s peculiar ability to insert itself into human affairs that it has created many echoes and rhymes between past and present,” writes the author, who has also written a number of nonfiction books, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The idea of opium as a malignant force permeates the narrative, as the author traces its role in the development of global trade as well as the growth of countries and corporations. There isn’t much that opium has not touched in some way in the past two centuries. Ghosh examines how opium, under British colonial direction, became a major part of the Indian economy during the 19th century and the nation’s primary export to China. The social impact in both countries was devastating and, according to Ghosh, fed into a breakdown of trust in governing institutions in China. Opium spread around the world with Indian immigration, and in many regions, it was legal until recent times. The cultivation of poppies is so lucrative that it has proved impossible to eradicate, and Ghosh calculates that more opium is now produced than ever. Much of the growth is tied to the rise of opioid addiction in the U.S., which the author sees as a key reason for the fraying of the country’s social fabric. Some readers may feel that the author sometimes overstates his case, yet his central thesis of opium’s destructive nature is impossible to deny.
A well-informed, readable, disturbing journey down a dark avenue of history.
