01609    a2200217   450000100060000000300090000600500170001500800410003202000250007304000130009804100080011108200150011910000270013424500950016126000430025630000350029950400510033452009610038565000260134665000190137211486IN-BhIIT20260527200643.0260527b        |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  a9789362136220 (hbk.)  aIN-BhIIT  aeng  a915.4bGHO  aGhosh, Amitav eAuthor  aSmoke and ashes :ba writer’s journey through opium’s hidden histories /cAmitav Ghosh  aHaryana :bFourth Estate India,c2024.  avii, 397 p. :bill. ;c20 cm.   aIncludes bibliographical references and index.  aSmoke 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.  aOpium trade vHistory  aTravel writing