01680 a2200241 4500 11486 IN-BhIIT 20260527200643.0 260527b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d 9789362136220 (hbk.) IN-BhIIT eng 915.4 GHO Ghosh, Amitav Author 7829 Smoke and ashes : a writer’s journey through opium’s hidden histories / Amitav Ghosh Haryana : Fourth Estate India, 2024. vii, 397 p. : ill. ; 20 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 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. Opium trade History 27874 Travel writing 27423 GEN 15488 15488 0 0 ddc 0 0 GEN CLIITBBS CLIITBBS 2026-03-13 33 374.25 0 915.4 GHO 11486 2026-03-13 00:00:00 499.00 2026-03-13 GEN