SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The book analyses the influence of medicinal and recreational drug consumption in China from the late Ming period (c.1600) to the fall of the Republic on the Chinese mainland (1949). It questions the assumption that opium (and later semi-synthetic opiates) were responsible for the military and political weakness of China during much of the the 19th and 20th centuries, pointing to patterns of social consumption which provided for stability and economic growth. The role of the (opium-importing) western powers is also re-assessed, resulting in a more positive interpretation than dictated by 20th-century Chinese nationalism.