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Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories Hardcover – February 13, 2024

by Amitav Ghosh (Author)

474 ratings

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Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Foreign Policy, Literary Hub, and The Millions

Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family―the climax of a yearslong project.

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, 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. Following the profits further, Ghosh finds opium central to 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 history, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant has had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

From the Publisher

Praise for Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh

Editorial Reviews

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"[A] bracing new history of the global opium trade . . . Ghosh’s tentacular history embraces opium’s entanglement with furniture, architecture, gardens and its role in modern wars. His forensic analysis of opium-factory paintings is particularly fascinating . . . But it’s Ghosh’s big-picture thinking that has made his nonfiction so influential . . . [A] huge achievement." ―Delia Falconer, The New York Times Book Review

“Ghosh’s impressive history of the opium industry is an attempt to acknowledge ‘the historical agency of botanical matter’ . . . As Smoke and Ashes shows in forceful, even thundering, prose, the Boston Brahmins and the East India Company unleashed an evil they could not restrain.” ―Becca Rothfeld,The Washington Post

"Ghosh’s elegant history of the plant’s influence is both a tribute to what he calls 'the historical agency of botanical matter' and a reckoning with the imperial past." ―The Economist

“Propulsive and revelatory . . . A skilled storyteller, [Ghosh] triumphs in laying out the shame of the British empire’s opium trade for all to see.” ―Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times

“Expansive and thoughtful . . . Smoke and Ashes is a lovely blend of historical writing, travelogue and personal reflection.” ―Peter Frankopan, The Spectator

“A scintillating and kaleidoscopic vision of opium’s role in the past several centuries of global history . . . Exquisitely written and packed with astonishing insight, this is a must-read.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Ghosh's literary prowess supercharges this eye-opening excavation of the full extent of the opium-industrial complex." ―Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

About the Author

Amitav Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy, composed of Sea of Poppies (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. His other novels include The Circle of Reason, which won the Prix Médicis étranger, and The Glass Palace. He is the author of many works of nonfiction, including The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. He has received two lifetime achievement awards and five honorary doctorates. In 2018, Ghosh became the first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 13, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374602921
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374602925
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.35 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #94,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in India History
- #33 in Chinese History (Books)
- #459 in Industries (Books)

Customer Reviews:
474 ratings

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Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956), is a Bengali Indian author best known for his work in English fiction.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by David Shankbone (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers find the book's historical content fascinating and instructive, with one review highlighting its educational value about European/American corporations. The writing quality receives mixed feedback, with one customer describing it as extremely well written while another finds it frustratingly verbose.

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Informative Writing quality

10 customers mention "Informative"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and fascinating, with one review specifically highlighting its educational value about opium and another noting its comprehensive coverage of European/American corporations.

"...A note to the publisher: the cover dooms this excellent history to poor sales. Opium, a brilliant red flower, adorns landscapes...." Read more

"...An extremely objective viewpoint in possession of the author to come up with such a great book!!..." Read more

"...While the book is imaginative, well written and instructive, this reader could have done without its gratuitous asides." Read more

"...Well documented, as usual with the author, and presenting some very interesting takes on the facts...." Read more

5 customers mention "Writing quality"3 positive2 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style of the book, with one finding it extremely well written, while another describes it as unfocused and frustratingly verbose.

"...While the book is imaginative, well written and instructive, this reader could have done without its gratuitous asides." Read more

"...And the title? 'Smoke and Ashes' does not attract attention or interest. I bought this book only after hearing a radio interview of the author." Read more

"...an eye-opener. Extremely well written and entertaining despite its grave contents. Should be on EVERYBODY's reading list...." Read more

"...Unfortunately, the work is diluted by sometimes frustratingly verbose and tangential excursions…as well as being adulterated by recurrent promotion..." Read more

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VideoAdventures
Opium addiction as the foundation of corporations
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2025
Verified Purchase

This book provides an history of European/American corporations the Europeans and Americans would prefer to be forgotten.

The author details the schemes of European companies to exploit the small trade in opium, seize opium fields, then expand the opium trade to sell vast cargos of opium to addicts all through South East Asia and China. The British took control of lands in India, forced small farmers into virtual slavery ( debt serfdom ), and to exact concessions from China, employed armies to force China to accept addiction, aka, 'Free Trade.' Later, after the American Revolution, Americans entered the opium trade.

Many international corporations now owe their beginnings to the suffering of millions of opium addicts in past eras.

A note to the publisher: the cover dooms this excellent history to poor sales. Opium, a brilliant red flower, adorns landscapes. Why not exploit the flower for cover beauty? And the title? 'Smoke and Ashes' does not attract attention or interest. I bought this book only after hearing a radio interview of the author.

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Wu James
A great book every Chinese should read
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
Verified Purchase
Amitav Ghosh wrote a fantastic book about opium regarding its impacts to China as well as how the fortunes created by this poison thing via Americans who engaged in the poison trade in Canton.

The most important messages and research Ghosh produced in this book is to disclose all the wealth and financial impacts derived from the American opium traders who bought the money back to the America to contribute the industrial development there and then.

Every Chinese should read this book to know the significance of the opium trade and be enlightened and properly educated as how to view the world and how Chinese be viewed by others.

An extremely objective viewpoint in possession of the author to come up with such a great book!!

Not radical nor hateful but peaceful representation of a historical fact cross India to China then onward to American!!

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5 people found this helpful

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Francis O Walker
Go East Young Man
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2024
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This book enlivens the suppressed economic history of opium with well researched corroborative detail. It begins with British colonial powers in the 1800s who standardized its production in India and then experienced its wealth generating properties in China. This led to a feeding frenzy which even attracted well-connected Americans. In choosing the Far East over the West, where the saying advises them to go, these young men acquired riches that made their names famous: Forbes, Brown, as in the University, and Delano, as in FDR’s grandfather. The book makes painfully striking parallels with the modern day Sackler family and wisely points out how recognizing of the hypocrisy needed to hide the opium economy likely influenced the writing of Eric Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) and Rabindranath Tagore. Oddly, the author suggests that poppies have agency, along with mushrooms and cannabis (but he ignores tobacco), and posits, without evidence, that their qualities, which border on ‘mystical’, could mitigate the lure of opium. Two chapters wander off on unrelated themes: a “Lost Cause” lament about British military success and a well-argued but superfluous deconstruction of classic English gardens. While the book is imaginative, well written and instructive, this reader could have done without its gratuitous asides.

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Amazon Customer
Amitav Ghosh does not disappoint
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2024
Verified Purchase
This is a perfect closure to the Ibis Trilogy.
Well documented, as usual with the author, and presenting some very interesting takes on the facts.
I have read most of the author's work and I find him among the best contemporary voices, both in (historical) fiction and in non-fictional writing.
I am looking forward to reading his future books.
Thank you, Amitav!

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Alexa Fleckenstein M.D.
Most interesting historic-political read ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2024
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... an eye-opener. Extremely well written and entertaining despite its grave contents. Should be on EVERYBODY's reading list. Educating us about our past ... and future.

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DragonLover35
Style not for me
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2024
Verified Purchase
Read a sample before you buy. There are scintillating half-paragraphs and amazing bits of context, usually in the same places. I can’t figure out why the style turns me off, but it does, almost as though the topic would make a better long-form article (more concise style) or longer book (more detail to anchor the style). As someone who reads mostly history focused on material culture, trade and colonialism (guano, quinine, cochineal, etc), something about the scale of verbiage is off for me.

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Max Goldensohn
meaningful history of a little known fact of economics
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2024
Verified Purchase
Ghosh describes to good effect the start, development and consequences of British colonial cultivation of an opium export industry and how it financed the expansion of the British empire. Parallels with modern drug trade including opiate painkillers reveal important lessons about greed and power.

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mojo
very informative but very repetitive
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2024
Verified Purchase
there is a lot of very informative information on opium and the role western powers played in creating mass addiction in China and other parts of asia purely for profit, while sitting on their high horse while spreading destruction. worth reading for any one interested in the real story of empire and colonization.

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P. J. Martin
What to shudder about: the Opium War
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2025
Verified Purchase

Smoke and ashes: öpium's hidden histories by Amitav Ghosh
Although Ghosh occasionally goes over the top, his book is a disturbing read. Britain was a narco state, pushing opium from India to China. The Bihar area was tightly controlled by the East India Company, and run like E Germany with distrust, surveillance and control, with peasants inadequately comppensated for their compulsory growing of opium. The Brits won battles in West India but were never able to maintain such control so there was a free market in opium, with the government taking a transit tax and allowing the accumulation of capital there, a difference which shows to this day, The fabulous profits from opium allowed several rajahs to build amazing palaces. The Americans were also in the trade and much of their financial aristocracy owed their wealth to the capital they accumulated and invested in America. The Dutch also were monopolistic suppliers to Indonesia. Public opinion finally forced the end of the trade but that was not until the end of the 19th century

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Paul Campbell
The most fascinating story of the influence of a plant on inhuman history
Reviewed in Australia on September 28, 2024
Verified Purchase
The extraordinary level of research and references in this book make it believable even though it reads like a fairy story. No governments will admit to the depths they supported the opium trade because it was so lucrative “against policy” and still trying to cover it up. The same extraordinary profits are being made through other products under corporate control having similar effects to mankind with governments turning a blind eye ….. read on!

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Sanjay
Poppies made them do it! 😀
Reviewed in India on July 26, 2023
Verified Purchase
Amitav Ghosh is a unique writer, equally adept at both fiction and non-fiction. To my mind, his non-fiction travelogue kind writing is the best - In an Ancient Land (about Egypt and India) is one of my favourites.

‘Smoke and Ashes’ is a kind of post-writing analysis, generated by the Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies series). I personally found the Ibis trilogy extremely important, but also full of crude language and situations, which completely put me off. I therefore stopped after reading the first one. This non-fiction book helps fill the void.

It describes how the British colonial empire was built on tea and poppies. It goes into mesmerising details of the misery, the trickery, the deceit, the rapaciousness, the amorality of the colonial British and Dutch colonialists and the fortunes that they reaped for their misdeeds. It also points out how these colonialists reconstructed history and manipulated global perceptions to ensure that we know as little about this as we indeed do.

Just one illustration might suffice: it is often said that the British triggered the Bengal famines in India due to their tinkering with the landholding and revenue collection systems. Amitava Ghosh helps us understand exactly how. The British forced hundreds of thousands of acres to be sown with opium, instead of paddy. The famine caused by this in 1770 led to 10 million or one crore deaths in what was known as Golden Bengal. And that wasn’t just it. The farmers were forced to cultivate opium because they would not do it willingly as the British paid extremely low prices, which did not even cover the direct cost of production. This impoverished the farmers further, and often forced them to divert opium to open market - which led to further repression and the canard of the thieving Asians.

Amitava Ghosh is merciless and relentless in his indictment of the British in particular and the West in general. However, for some strange reason the book argues that the British did not do all this willingly - they were manipulated by the poppy plant, which has plans of world domination!

Is this Amitava Ghosh trying to sweeten the bitter pill of Smoke and Ashes? Or is this a real argument? I’m reading on to find out. You should too.

In terms of the physical book, the hardcover edition is printed and bound nicely. Typeface is pleasing. The price is a real steal. There are extensive footnotes and a bibliography. The only thing which I dearly miss is an index. That would have been wonderful.

Read more

Sanjay

Poppies made them do it! 😀

Reviewed in India on July 26, 2023
Amitav Ghosh is a unique writer, equally adept at both fiction and non-fiction. To my mind, his non-fiction travelogue kind writing is the best - In an Ancient Land (about Egypt and India) is one of my favourites.

‘Smoke and Ashes’ is a kind of post-writing analysis, generated by the Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies series). I personally found the Ibis trilogy extremely important, but also full of crude language and situations, which completely put me off. I therefore stopped after reading the first one. This non-fiction book helps fill the void.

It describes how the British colonial empire was built on tea and poppies. It goes into mesmerising details of the misery, the trickery, the deceit, the rapaciousness, the amorality of the colonial British and Dutch colonialists and the fortunes that they reaped for their misdeeds. It also points out how these colonialists reconstructed history and manipulated global perceptions to ensure that we know as little about this as we indeed do.

Just one illustration might suffice: it is often said that the British triggered the Bengal famines in India due to their tinkering with the landholding and revenue collection systems. Amitava Ghosh helps us understand exactly how. The British forced hundreds of thousands of acres to be sown with opium, instead of paddy. The famine caused by this in 1770 led to 10 million or one crore deaths in what was known as Golden Bengal. And that wasn’t just it. The farmers were forced to cultivate opium because they would not do it willingly as the British paid extremely low prices, which did not even cover the direct cost of production. This impoverished the farmers further, and often forced them to divert opium to open market - which led to further repression and the canard of the thieving Asians.

Amitava Ghosh is merciless and relentless in his indictment of the British in particular and the West in general. However, for some strange reason the book argues that the British did not do all this willingly - they were manipulated by the poppy plant, which has plans of world domination!

Is this Amitava Ghosh trying to sweeten the bitter pill of Smoke and Ashes? Or is this a real argument? I’m reading on to find out. You should too.

In terms of the physical book, the hardcover edition is printed and bound nicely. Typeface is pleasing. The price is a real steal. There are extensive footnotes and a bibliography. The only thing which I dearly miss is an index. That would have been wonderful.

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Lars
Interesting stories from India
Reviewed in Germany on April 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
I was expecting a more academic approach, but this book is a collection of anecdotes sometimes following a clear line of progression. What annoys most is the tieback to the authors earlier fictional work. But as the books name states, it is about Opium's histories, not History. Actually it should be called Opium's Indian Histories. More on China's role and connection would have been appreciated.

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Emma P
An eye-opener
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2025
Verified Purchase
I would strongly recommend this book, especially to Western readers who may be unaware of the history, and long-term consequences of the Opium trade. You may think this is unimportant, ancient history -it’s not, it’s still playing out today. The only minor irritation was the author’s tendency to plug his fiction books, but I’ll forgive him that because the book is so good. It’s pretty shocking as well and won’t please anyone who still insists that the US and Britain are the "good guys" .

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5.0 out of 5 stars What to shudder about: the Opium War

5.0 out of 5 stars The most fascinating story of the influence of a plant on inhuman history

5.0 out of 5 stars Poppies made them do it! 😀

Poppies made them do it! 😀

Images in this review

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting stories from India

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opener

What to shudder about: the Opium War

The most fascinating story of the influence of a plant on inhuman history

Poppies made them do it! 😀

Interesting stories from India

An eye-opener