The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China by Julia Lovell

‘A gripping read as well as an important one.’ Rana Mitter, Guardian

In October 1839, Britain entered the first Opium War with China. Its brutality notwithstanding, the conflict was also threaded with tragicomedy: with Victorian hypocrisy, bureaucratic fumblings, military missteps, political opportunism and collaboration. Yet over the past hundred and seventy years, this strange tale of misunderstanding, incompetence and compromise has become the founding episode of modern Chinese nationalism.

Starting from this first conflict, The Opium War explores how China’s national myths mould its interactions with the outside world, how public memory is spun to serve the present, and how delusion and prejudice have bedevilled its relationship with the modern West.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador

Publication date ‏ : ‎ 10 May 2012

Edition ‏ : ‎ Main Market

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Print length ‏ : ‎ 512 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0330457489

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9780330457484

Item weight ‏ : ‎ 390 g

Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 3.3 x 19.7 cm

About the Author

Julia Lovell teaches modern Chinese history at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of The Opium War: Drugs, Drama And The Making Of China, The Great Wall: China Against the World and The Politics of Cultural Capital: China’s Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature and writes on China for the Guardian, Independent and The Times Literary Supplement. Her many translations of modern Chinese fiction include Lu Xun’s The Real Story of Ah-Q, and Other Tales of China.