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Smuggling conjures up images of romance and rebellion. Moving beyond this popular conception, Smuggling: Seven Centuries of Contraband presents the bigger picture of this clandestine trade. It focuses on the powerful political, economic, scientic and cultural interests involved in smuggling and how these have affected the history and geopolitics of the world.
The story is told through historically world-changing contraband, ranging from silk, spice and silver in the Age of Exploration to gold guineas, opium, tea and rubber in times of empire and, in the modern world, cocaine, heroin and blood diamonds. Other commodities, as diverse as guns and art, have been smuggled throughout the ages, as has the priceless contraband of illicit ideas. Central to all this has been a succession of infamous and inuential legitimate forces, such as the Dutch and British East India Companies and the luminaries of the Spanish Empire. Later we encounter Napoleon Bonaparte organizing English smugglers, Nazis, Soviet trophy brigades and the cia - all have at some point made smuggling their business. On a smaller scale we see the spread of all-pervasive micro-economies in the smuggling of everyday goods, precious objects and people. By representing such black-market circulations beside these great smuggling projects we can begin to talk about a world that at all levels is crossed by smugglers paths. This book is in large part a story of globalization, but one told, for the rst time, through smuggling.
About the author
Simon Harvey is Associate Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Trondheim.
Summary
The first global account of smuggling across seven centuries of history.
