Empires of vice : the rise of opium prohibition across Southeast Asia / Diana S. Kim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kim, Diana S., Author.

Series:

Histories of economic life.

Histories of Economic Life ; 22

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opium trade--Southeast Asia--History.

Opium trade.

France--Colonies--Asia--Administration.

France.

Great Britain--Colonies--Asia--Administration.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2020]

Summary:

A history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast AsiaDuring the late nineteenth century, opium was integral to European colonial rule in Southeast Asia. The taxation of opium was a major source of revenue for British and French colonizers, who also derived moral authority from imposing a tax on a peculiar vice of their non-European subjects. Yet between the 1890s and the 1940s, colonial states began to ban opium, upsetting the very foundations of overseas rule-how? Empires of Vice traces the history of this dramatic reversal, revealing the colonial legacies that set the stage for the region's drug problems today.Diana Kim challenges the conventional wisdom about opium prohibition-that it came about because doctors awoke to the dangers of drug addiction or that it was a response to moral crusaders-uncovering a more complex story deep within the colonial bureaucracy. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence across Southeast Asia and Europe, she shows how prohibition was made possible by the pivotal contributions of seemingly weak bureaucratic officials. Comparing British and French experiences across today's Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam, Kim examines how the everyday work of local administrators delegitimized the taxing of opium, which in turn made major anti-opium reforms possible.Empires of Vice reveals the inner life of colonial bureaucracy, illuminating how European rulers reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance and shaped Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the punitive state.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Note on Terms Used

1. Introduction

2. A Shared Turn: Opium and the Rise of Prohibition

3. The Different Lives of Southeast Asia's Opium Monopolies

4. "Morally Wrecked" in British Burma, 1870s-1890s

5. Fiscal Dependency in British Malaya, 1890s-1920s

6. Disastrous Abundance in French Indochina, 1920s-1940s

7. Colonial Legacies

8. Conclusion

Appendix

Abbreviations

Notes

Sources and Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780691199696

0691199698

OCLC:

1111637794