Skip to Content
Smoke and Ashes : A Writers Journey Through Opiums Hidden Histories

Price:

1,400.00 ৳


Before Memory Fades : an autobiography
Before Memory Fades : an autobiography
900.00 ৳
900.00 ৳
ঠাকুরবাড়ির লেখা
ঠাকুরবাড়ির লেখা
520.00 ৳
520.00 ৳

Smoke and Ashes : A Writers Journey Through Opiums Hidden Histories

https://pathakshamabesh.com/web/image/product.template/10664/image_1920?unique=03c029b

1,400.00 ৳ 1400.0 BDT 1,400.00 ৳

Not Available For Sale


This combination does not exist.

Terms and Conditions
30-day money-back guarantee
Shipping: 2-3 Business Days

 Delivery Charge (Based on Location & Book Weight)

 Inside Dhaka City: Starts from Tk. 70 (Based on book weight)

 Outside Dhaka (Anywhere in Bangladesh): Starts from Tk. 150 (Weight-wise calculation applies)

 International Delivery: Charges vary by country and book weight — will be informed after order confirmation.

 3 Days Happy ReturnChange of mind is not applicable

 Multiple Payment Methods

Credit/Debit Card, bKash, Rocket, Nagad, and Cash on Delivery also available. 

Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire's survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, several of America's most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound. Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe. 'In thinking about the opium poppy's role in history it is hard to ignore the feeling of an intelligence at work. The single most important indication of this is the poppy's ability to create cycles of repetition, which manifest themselves in similar phenomena over time. What the opium poppy does is clearly not random; it builds symmetries that rhyme with each other. It is important to recognize that these cycles will go on repeating, because the opium poppy is not going away anytime soon. In Mexico, for instance, despite intensive eradication efforts the acreage under poppy cultivation has continued to increase. Indeed, there is more opium being produced in the world today than at any time in the past. Only by recognizing the power and intelligence of the opium poppy can we even begin to make peace with it.'

Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta on 11 July 1956 and was educated at the all-boys boarding school The Doon School in Dehradun. He grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. His contemporaries at Doon included author Vikram Seth and historian Ram Guha. While at school, he regularly contributed fiction and poetry to The Doon School Weekly (then edited by Seth) and founded the magazine History Times along with Guha. After Doon, he received degrees from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, and Delhi School of Economics. He then won the Inlaks Foundation scholarship to complete a D. Phil. in social anthropology at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, under the supervision of British social anthropologist Peter Lienhardt. The thesis, undertaken in the Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, was entitled "Kinship in relation to economic and social organization in an Egyptian village community" and submitted in 1982. Ghosh's first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi. Ghosh lives in New York with his wife, Deborah Baker, author of the Laura Riding biography In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding (1993) and a senior editor at Little, Brown and Company. They have two children, Lila and Nayan. The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, The Hungry Tide

Title

Smoke and Ashes : A Writers Journey Through Opiums Hidden Histories

Author

Amitav Ghosh

Number of Pages

397

Language

English (US)

Category

  • History
  • First Published

    JUL 2023

    Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir and an excursion into history, both economic and cultural. Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India and China, as well as on the world at large. Engineered by the British Empire, which exported opium from India to sell in China, the trade and its revenues were essential to the Empire's survival. Upon deeper exploration, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, several of America's most powerful families and institutions, and contemporary globalism itself. In India the long-term consequences were even more profound. Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, Smoke and Ashes reveals the pivotal role one small plant has played in the making of the world as we know it - a world that is now teetering on the edge of catastrophe. 'In thinking about the opium poppy's role in history it is hard to ignore the feeling of an intelligence at work. The single most important indication of this is the poppy's ability to create cycles of repetition, which manifest themselves in similar phenomena over time. What the opium poppy does is clearly not random; it builds symmetries that rhyme with each other. It is important to recognize that these cycles will go on repeating, because the opium poppy is not going away anytime soon. In Mexico, for instance, despite intensive eradication efforts the acreage under poppy cultivation has continued to increase. Indeed, there is more opium being produced in the world today than at any time in the past. Only by recognizing the power and intelligence of the opium poppy can we even begin to make peace with it.'
    No Specifications