Library Catalogue
Smoke and ashes : a writer's journey through opium's hidden histories /
Smoke and ashes : a writer's journey through opium's hidden histories /
Amitav Ghosh.
- vii, 397 pages
One Here Be Dragons;
Two Seeds;
Three 'An Actor in Its Own Right';
Four Frenemies;
Five The Opium Department;
Six Big Brother;
Seven Visions;
Eight Family Story;
Nine Malwa;
Ten East and West;
Eleven Diasporas;
Twelve Boston Brahmins;
Thirteen American Stories;
Fourteen Guangzhou;
Fifteen The Sea-Calming Tower;
Sixteen Pillar of Empire;
Seventeen Parallels;
Eighteen Portents;
Acknowledgements;
Copyright;
Acknowledgements;
Notes.
When Amitav Ghosh began his research for the Ibis Trilogy some twenty years ago, he was startled to find how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by a precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story.
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire’s survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, several of America’s most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound.
Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it – a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.
9789356992757 (hardback)
Library of Congress -- New Delhi Overseas Office
2023346883
338.47362293
One Here Be Dragons;
Two Seeds;
Three 'An Actor in Its Own Right';
Four Frenemies;
Five The Opium Department;
Six Big Brother;
Seven Visions;
Eight Family Story;
Nine Malwa;
Ten East and West;
Eleven Diasporas;
Twelve Boston Brahmins;
Thirteen American Stories;
Fourteen Guangzhou;
Fifteen The Sea-Calming Tower;
Sixteen Pillar of Empire;
Seventeen Parallels;
Eighteen Portents;
Acknowledgements;
Copyright;
Acknowledgements;
Notes.
When Amitav Ghosh began his research for the Ibis Trilogy some twenty years ago, he was startled to find how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by a precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story.
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire’s survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, several of America’s most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound.
Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it – a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.
9789356992757 (hardback)
Library of Congress -- New Delhi Overseas Office
2023346883
338.47362293