Opium and the limits of empire : drug prohibition in the Chinese interior, 1729-1850 / David Anthony Bello.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bello, David Anthony, 1963- author.

Series:

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 241.

Harvard East Asian monographs ; 241

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opium trade--China--History.

Opium trade.

Drug control--China--History.

Drug control.

Drug abuse--China--History.

Drug abuse.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London : Harvard University Asia Center, [2005]

Summary:

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 populace created regionally and culturally distinct problems of control for the Qing state.This book examines the crisis from the perspective of Qing prohibition efforts. The author argues that opium prohibition, and not the opium wars, was genuinely imperial in scale and is hence much more representative of the actual drug problem faced by Qing administrators. The study of prohibition also permits a more comprehensive and accurate observation of the economics and criminology of opium. The Qing drug traffic involved the domestic production, distribution, and consumption of opium. A balanced examination of the opium market and state anti-drug policy in terms of prohibition reveals the importance of the empire's landlocked western frontier regions, which were the domestic production centers, in what has previously been considered an essentially coastal problem.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction

The British Prohibition in India in Comparative Perspective

Regional Administrative Structures

The Han Core and Policy Formation

The Opium Problem in Xinjiang

The Opium Problem in Southwestern China

Opium and Qing Expansionism

Dynastic Opium Policy Before the Daoguang Reign

Translation of Shanxi Taiyu District Magistrate Chen Lihe's "Opium Prohibition Pledge" Stele

Character List

Works Cited

Index

Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Notes:

Bibliogr. p. 327-347. Index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-68417-405-8

OCLC:

651677084

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684174058 DOI