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

In The Opium War, professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature Julia Lovell offers a compelling account of the causes and fallout of the Opium Wars.

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

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.