SMOKE AND ASHES

An insightful study of the opium trade as a shadowy background to the rise and fall of nations.

Indian novelist Ghosh became interested in the opium trade while doing research for his acclaimed Ibis trilogy, and this book could be considered both background addendum to those novels and a stand-alone book. “It is a measure of opium’s peculiar ability to insert itself into human affairs that it has created many echoes and rhymes between past and present,” writes the author, who has also written a number of nonfiction books, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The idea of opium as a malignant force permeates the narrative, as the author traces its role in the development of global trade as well as the growth of countries and corporations. There isn’t much that opium has not touched in some way in the past two centuries. Ghosh examines how opium, under British colonial direction, became a major part of the Indian economy during the 19th century and the nation’s primary export to China. The social impact in both countries was devastating and, according to Ghosh, fed into a breakdown of trust in governing institutions in China. Opium spread around the world with Indian immigration, and in many regions, it was legal until recent times. The cultivation of poppies is so lucrative that it has proved impossible to eradicate, and Ghosh calculates that more opium is now produced than ever. Much of the growth is tied to the rise of opioid addiction in the U.S., which the author sees as a key reason for the fraying of the country’s social fabric. Some readers may feel that the author sometimes overstates his case, yet his central thesis of opium’s destructive nature is impossible to deny.

A well-informed, readable, disturbing journey down a dark avenue of history.