Smoke and Ashes

Opium's Hidden Histories

De: Amitav Ghosh

Narrado por: Ranjit Madgavkar

Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family—the climax of a years long project.

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story.

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China to redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the empire’s financial survival.

Tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, of America’s most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.

Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the repercussions of colonialism, Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

©2024 Amitav Ghosh (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

A very interesting book ruined by bad narration

As with his other books, Ghosh goes into fine detail weaving multiple strands of history together to yield rich perspective of the centrality of the opium trade in the development of global commerce and culture. Some parts of the story are well known and have been told many times before (Peter Ward Fay's The Opium War 1840-1842 being but one good example). But Ghosh digs deeply into the correspondence and records of many of the more and less prominent traders, while simultaneously considering the broad scope of connections, in the vein of Mark Kurlansky's books on Cod and Salt and the like.

I would have liked to be able to enjoy the the text but unfortunately, the narrator has chosen to insert himself into the telling in a most irritating way. He seems to feel the need to dramatize and comment on the emotional content of his text, even when - particularly when - there is no need to do so. He slows down and emphasizes certain passages with slow, labored attention to each word in some passages, then speeds up and passes quickly over others, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. Letters from one person to another are particularly painful exercises in bad acting.

It got to the point that I could only listen in short bursts, sometimes no longer than a few minutes before the narration got so infuriating that I would have to stop. Again, a real shame as I generally enjoy the sweep of Ghosh's histories, as for example in his The Nutmeg's Curse.

a must read

fascinating history of opium and the evil of opioids. men's cruelty motivated by greed is frightening and the book provides ample proof.

Poor performance

Publishers really need to pay closer attention to (and perhaps higher fees for) performance. This is another fine book ruined by poor voice acting... over-acting, in many places.

I adored the narrator

Not sure what others are not liking. I am super fussy about narrators too.

Good pacing and emotive but not overdone at all.

Follow the poppy as it builds and destroys empires

Fascinating dive into the origins of opium and how it has been used by people to shape the centuries. Where myths and legends came from. Even the repercussions that continue to effect us today. Goes into great detail about how the money flowed and the intertangled web of power.

There is a fair amount towards the end that will be hit or miss. I guess if you have read his other books it might be some interesting insight, but was largely wasted on me.

Interesting Research, Terrible Reading

There is no question the author knows his subject and although at times and specially in the beginning the book is dull, overall is a very interesting story of early global commerce. The variations in volume and tone of voice of the author makes this book very hard to listen to. I tried putting the volume all the way up and even then when he emphasises a word instead of projecting his voice he whispers. If you can read this book in other formats I highly recommend that you do.

Eye opening discussion of worldwide opium trade.

For centuries opium trade has been keeping governments monetarily afloat. The first opium cartels were the governments that controlled opium production and sale throughout the world.

a distinguished book on a topic generally unexplored

excellent and through research on a topic that changed the world but often unspoken of.

Dull story, poorly narrated

This tedious narrative of how opium was forced on India, China, and other countries by the British and other colonial governments is full of dull details: to name just a a few, long descriptions of how the Indian, English, and American opium traders lived and parties they attended in Guanzhou, China; schools of painting and lives of now-obscure painters who created landscapes and portraits during the opium era; descriptions of obscure fictionalized battles and other episodes from the author's own novels; and on and on. The author even name drops a couple of American movie stars who recently showed an interest in (but didn't buy) the mansion built by one American opium trader.

Amid the dense thickets of details, it's hard to remain interested in the terrible history of opium and how it was used against the poor people who were forced to grow it and the colonized people who were encouraged to destroy themselves using it.

I listened to the book in my car and found myself constantly having to raise and reduce the volume because of the narrator's irritating habit of starting out a sentence loudly, then sinking into a half-whisper part way through. I would have stopped listening if it weren't my book group's most recent selection.