Opium and Empire in Southeast Asia - Regulating Consumption in British Burma

"This study investigates the connection between the regulation of opium and the exercise of imperial power in colonial Burma. It traces the opium industry from the British annexation of the Burmese territories of Arakan and Tenasserim in 1826 to the end of the colonial era, arguing that this connection was multi-dimensional. The British regime regulated opium to facilitate labour extraction, and the articulation of a rationale for opium policy was inextricable from the articulation of a rationale for colonial rule more generally. Evolving discourses about race invoked opium consumption. Finally, Burma's position in multiple transnational and imperial networks informed its colonial opium policy"--

List of contents

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Fashioning of Opium Policy in Arakan and Tenasserim 2. Regulating opium in British Burma, 1852-1885 3. Race and the regulation of consumption in colonial Burma 4. Testimony about Burma at the Royal Commission on Opium 5. The Royal Commission and the rationale for opium policy 6. The age of international conferences, 1895-1914 7. Burma, The League of Nations and opium policy networks 8. Separation, negotiation and drug diplomacy: 1935-1939 Epilogue Conclusion Appendix Bibliography

Report

"Ashley Wright's Opium and Empire in South-East Asia is the latest addition to this growing historiography. It is a thorough study of what is now Myanmar and was once Burma that does much to further nuance our understanding of the complexities and paradoxes of the history of intoxicants in Asia. ... The new evidence of the complexities of governing intoxicants in this book makes it another significant contribution to the revisionist movement in the history of narcotics in modern Asia." (Professor James H. Mills, Reviews in History, history.ac.uk, October, 2016)
'There is now a rich literature on the British imperial opium trade throughout Asia, but Ashley Wright's Opium and Empire in Southeast Asia: Regulating Consumption in British Burma is the first one devoted specifically to Burma, and for that reason specialists will wish to engage with it. Her arguments are clear and convincing. She is deeply conversant with the now very rich literature on opium and the British Empire.'- Philip Harling, Journal of British Studies, 54, (2015)

Product details

• Authors: A Wright, A. Wright, Ashley Wright
• Publisher: Palgrave UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.11.2013
• EAN: 9780230296466
• ISBN: 978-0-230-29646-6
• No. of pages: 220
• Series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series; Cambridge Imperial and Post-Co; Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series; Cambridge Imperial and Post-Co; Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; B, History, History: specific events & topics, South East Asia, Colonialism & imperialism, Political science & theory, Political History, Asian History, World Politics, imperialism, History, Modern, Palgrave History Collection, Modern History, History of Britain and Ireland, Great Britain—History, Imperialism and Colonialism, Southeast Asia—History, History of Southeast Asia, Asia—History