Preface
Content
List of Illustrations, Tables, Figures and Maps
PART ONE THE OPIUM PROBLEM
PART TWO THE BRITISH ASSAULT
PART THREE THE DUTCH ASSAULT
PART FOUR THE FRENCH ASSAULT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
PART FIVE THE NEW IMPERIALISTS
PART SIX THE VICTIMS
PART SEVEN THE STORY OF THE SNAKE AND ITS TAIL
APPENDICES
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Hans Derks, historian and Doctor in the Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam (1986), was Senior Lecturer at the University of Utrecht and University of Surinam. He published about twenty books and numerous scholarly articles on European and Chinese history, the Second World War, and ancient Greek history, including Jew, Nomad or Pariah. Studies on Hannah Arendt's Choice (Aksant/Transactions, 2004).
"This monumental volume clearly and comprehensively traces the
evolution of "the opium problem" from 1600 throughout eastern Asia,
with full attention to Europe and North America when they are
pertinent. By "opium problem" historian Derks (Univ. of Utrecht,
Netherlands) refers to a sociopathic combination of features that
tend to occur whenever efforts at prohibition interrupt customary
and medical uses of opium. Almost everywhere, aspects of the
"problem" include rapid and immense profiteering by outsiders,
rampant corruption of political and legal institutions, severe
ethnic and religious prejudice, massive exploitation of poor
laborers, and a consistent pattern of "blaiming the victim" so that
that those who suffer most from those disruptons are scapegoated as
supposedly having caused them. By closely analyzing the case
histories of British, Dutch, French, Japanese, and US relations
with each nation and major region throughout the eatern half of
Asia, Derks convincingly lays bare a recurrent "narco-military
complex" associated with colonialism (sometimes of the "neo-"
variant), and does so without any shrill polemics. When evaluated
in terms of what the author set out to do, this is an impressive
compilation and analysis on an almost unimaginable scale, revealing
part of the dark underbelly of globalization since the mid-1600s.
Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries." – D.B. Heath, Brown
University, in: CHOICE, 50/3
"It is almost impossible to do justice to this massive volume in
such a small space, just as it is almost impossible to read it
without entering into an involuntary mental debate with the author,
a debate that can be engaging and frustrating." – JOYCE A. MADANCY,
Union College, in: Journal of Asian Studies 72.4 (2013)
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