Smoke And Ashes

Opium's Hidden Histories

By: Amitav Ghosh

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Paperback | 29 April 2025 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
416 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.7 x 2.6

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'A bracing new history of the global opium trade . . . Ghosh's tentacular history embraces opium's entanglement with furniture, architecture, gardens and its role in modern wars . . . But it's Ghosh's big-picture thinking that has made his nonfiction so influential . . . A huge achievement' The New York Times Book Review

From the nineteenth century the British reaped huge profits by exporting vast quantities of opium from India, waged wars to defend its access to markets, and created a devastating addiction crisis in China. A sweeping story of greed and power, Smoke and Ashes reveals how opium created the wealth of modern cities like Mumbai, Singapore and Shanghai, as well as many of America's most powerful families and institutions, and is a part of Ghosh's personal history.

'Ghosh triumphs in laying out the shame of the British Empire's opium trade for all to see' Financial Times

'This gave me a deeper chill than any TV series about the opioid crisis. . . The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday Telegraph

'Superlative . . . synthesise[s] a wealth of research with remarkable intellectual clarity' The Times

'Expansive and thoughtful' Peter Frankopan, The Spectator

Industry Reviews

An acerbic, compelling and always accessible account of how opium corrupted the world - TLS

Ghosh has reinvented himself as a superlative commodity historian. In his new role, he has surpassed many seasoned historians in his ability to synthesise a wealth of research with remarkable intellectual clarity and suggestive simplicity . . . There's a quietly subversive element to Smoke and Ashes for which Ghosh deserves to be commended - The Times

The book gave me a deeper chill than any of the TV series about the opioid crisis I had viewed before reading it . . . The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb, and there are splashes of personal back story that underscore the sincerity of the author's arguments - Sunday Telegraph

A riveting new history of opium, a lucrative and destructive flower . . . Amitav Ghosh's sweeping, forcefully written Smoke and Ashes covers centuries in the life of the plant - Washington Post

A skilled storyteller, Ghosh triumphs in laying out the shame of the British empire's opium trade for all to see . . . [Smoke and Ashes is] a catalogue of colonial rapaciousness - Financial Times

A gripping, true tale of profits, power and powerlessness wrought by drugs . . . the history of the opium trade helps explain the modern world . . . an elegant history . . . [Ghosh] tells his intricate story with verve - The Economist

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