The Opium Clippers By Basil Lubbock

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1921 Edition.

An epic first novel chronicling the fortunes of the opium trade by a talented Indian writer Kunal Basu's panoramic first novel follows the vagaries of Hiran's life, and the flow of the opium trade, from Calcutta to Canton. Disguised as a missionary, he survives cholera, piracy and war in China, arriving back in India to find his homeland on the verge of another rebellion. And he finds himself suddenly father to a half-caste son, the child abandoned by the Englishman and his wife when they fled back in disgrace to Britain. As Hiran dedicates himself to the education of his new son, the cycle of regeneration continues. Douglas, now an adult, neither black nor white, flees India himself for the Orient, again carried along on the flood of opium, this time to Borneo, to Sarawak: the land of the White Rajahs.

Opium Traders and Their Worlds examines the opium trade with a detective's investigative approach. The author uses evidence to dismiss many of the false claims commonly held with regard to the so-called "legitimacy" of the Old China trade, presents proof of important figures who were deeply involved in all parts of the world and shows how world events were affected by famous men in opium hierarchies. Lateral contributors to the drug trade include shipbuilders who fashioned their craft to meet needs of the commerce, designing specially built Indiamen, clippers, and "fast crabs." Ms. Kienholz shows how vicious competition in the trade moved players like chess pieces, with winners and losers shifting positions. Her research into the production of the new "opioids" such as oxycodone is an area not previously probed.

Opium Traders-Volume Two continues the history of opium commerce at a point where the Sassoons of Persia, closely connected with the Rothchilds, won control of the trade. The Sassoons celebrated when the monopoly of the British East India Company was repealed; they used their business expertise and parliamentary connections in London to grab nearly 80% of the drug trade out of India. Connections with British royalty made possible their important involvement in securing Israel as the Jewish Homeland. The Sassoons' extensive holdings in India and China were encroached upon as a result of India's independence movement and China's takeover by communists. Indian independence strengthened the hold of the Parsee family of Tatas, who, in the 21st Century are advertising the development of a "People's car" estimated to cost about $2,500. China's takeover by communists, who now hold a monopoly of China's expansive opium trade, followed the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions and the revolution of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-chek. These militant movements are summarized. Japan's exploitation of opium in the Manchuria-Manchukuo era, through secret societies, is detailed. The opium trade of East Asia and the Middle East is further elaborated in descriptions of the cultivation of poppies of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Burma, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Indonesian territories. Contemporary poppy fields of Mallinckrodt, opium and labor smuggling during the years of railroad building and Mafia activity in the United States are addressed.

In 1832 William Jardine and James Matheson established what would become the greatest British trading company in East Asia in the nineteenth century. After the termination of the East India Company's monopoly in the tea trade, Jardine, Matheson & Company's aggressive marketing strategies concentrated on the export of teas and the import of opium, sold offshore to Chinese smugglers. Jardine and Matheson, recognized as giants on the scene at Macao, Canton, and Hong Kong, have often been depicted as one-dimensional villains whose opium commerce was ruthless and whose imperial drive was insatiable. In Opium and Empire, Richard Grace explores the depths of each man, their complicated and sometimes inconsistent internal workings, and their achievements and failures. He details their decades-long journeys between Britain and China, their business strategies and standards of conduct, and their inventiveness as "gentlemanly capitalists." The commodities they marketed also included cotton, rice, textile goods, and silks and they functioned as agents for clients in India, Britain, Singapore, and Australia. During the First Opium War Jardine was in London giving advice to Lord Palmerston, while Matheson was detained under house arrest at Canton in the spring of 1839, an incident which helped prompt the armed British response. Moving beyond the caricatures of earlier accounts, Opium and Empire tells the story of two Scotsmen whose lives reveal a great deal about the type of tough-minded men who expanded the global markets of Victorian Britain and played major roles in changing the course of modern history in East Asia.