Product Description

In this tragic and powerful story, the two Opium Wars of 1839 1842 and 1856 1860 between Britain and China are recounted for the first time through the eyes of the Chinese as well as the Imperial West. Opium entered China during the Middle Ages when Arab traders brought it into China for medicinal purposes. As it took hold as a recreational drug, opium wrought havoc on Chinese society. By the early nineteenth century, 90 percent of the Emperor s court and the majority of the army were opium addicts. Britain was also a nation addicted to tea, grown in China, and paid for with profits made from the opium trade. When China tried to ban the use of the drug and bar its Western smugglers from it gates, England decided to fight to keep open China s ports for its importation. England, the superpower of its time, managed to do so in two wars, resulting in a drug-induced devastation of the Chinese people that would last 150 years. In this page-turning, dramatic and colorful history, The Opium Wars responds to past, biased Western accounts by representing the neglected Chinese version of the story and showing how the wars stand as one of the monumental clashes between the cultures of East and West.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119966 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
A fine popular account. --Publishers Weekly

Their account of the causes, military campaigns and tragic effects of these wars is absorbing, frequently macabre and deeply unsettling." --Booklist

Their account of the causes, military campaigns and tragic effects of these wars is absorbing, frequently macabre and deeply unsettling." --Booklist

Customer Reviews

A very good introduction to the subject
The Opium Wars are, as the book's authors point out, events largely forgotten or ignored by Westerners today. Having grown up in England, I know that no mention of it ever crept into history lessons or any other discussions involving the British Empire. This is a pity, because not only does it reflect badly on (especially) the British and the French for glossing over a shameful part of their history, but it blinds Westerners to one of the main reasons why there is so much anger, mistrust and ambivalence in China towards them today: feelings that are commonly attributed to Chinese barbarity, jealousy or non-acceptance of a superior Western civilisation.

Hanes and Sanello provide a good introduction to the subject for non-historians and those with very little knowledge of the wars in question. In the 19th century, the Chinese were patronising and overbearing in their dealings with European merchants, believing themselves to be the most civilised nation on Earth. They had very little interest in European-made goods, but the Europeans, and especially the British, wanted tea, silk and other commodities that were largely available only in China. When the British found something that the Chinese did want in return, opium, the decision was made to supply the Chinese with the drug, a trade backed by powerful and wealthy merchants who held influence in the highest ranks of British politics.

The result is covered in some detail in this book, in which China's military, weak and outdated after decades of complacency and neglect, were no match for the state-of-the-art British navy (who were later joined by the French) when they tried to enforce the opium trade. A series of battles and unreasonable demands eventually forced the Chinese to a humiliating defeat, draining their economy and turning a large number of the population into opium addicts (who the British tried to claim could quit at any time if they really wanted to). All of this culminated in the looting by French and British troops of the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing, a decadent symbol of Chinese civilisation, which the authors describe in some detail as perhaps the richest treasure trove on Earth at the time.

In general the book is very readable, lacking the stuffiness of an academic treatise while still having references to other texts for readers to turn to for more information. The authors' dry sense of humour also shows clearly throughout the narrative, my favourite example occurring when they describe the attitude of Ye Mingchen, the Viceroy of Canton, '...he displayed listlessness and apathy for the genuine war that was coming. He may have been distracted by the greater threat of the Taiping insurgents, who had overrun his province. Or as historian Douglas Hurd has suggested in his unlikely explanation of Ye's passivity, the Viceroy's sloth and inaction may have been due to the fact that "Yeh [Ye] was fat, and it was hot."'

My biggest complaint about the book is that it deals with the aftermath of the Second Opium War only very briefly, completely missing out events such as the Boxer Rebellion and fast-forwarding almost a century to Mao Zedong's rule in a mere few paragraphs. However, as the title of the book is "The Opium Wars", this is perhaps not unexpected.

Overall, the authors' account is fair, condemning the arrogance and incompetence of China's rulers, and the selfishness of Chinese merchants who also profited from the opium trade, as well as the greed and immorality of the Westerners who participated in the trade and then conveniently ignored it afterwards. It is the act of ignoring the Opium Wars in the West that continues to infuriate Chinese to this day, and a good knowledge of this subject is absolutely crucial to anyone who wants to understand the shape of modern China. This book, for anyone who wants to learn more, is a good start.

Interesting and easy to read
The previous review is spot on. I found this book informative, accessible and entertaining. Not often found in non-Fiction.