Opium: A History - Softcover

Booth writes with admirable attention to detail, if very little élan. Plowing through some of his sentences is a little like chewing on a mouthful of sawdust: "There are several reasons suggested for the popularity of the hypodermic but the primary one is the lowering standard of heroin purity caused by the success of legislation on production and by the selling methods employed by Italians who took over distribution from Jewish gangs, leading to an increase in price and higher levels of adulteration." It's enough to drive a reader to drugs. Nonetheless, the power of his narrative can't be entirely erased by the unwieldiness of his prose. The book is filled with striking images and surprising facts--for instance, opium-addicted Victorian children, fed "soothing syrups" by minders to keep them quiet. Undernourished, yellow-skinned, in the words of one contemporary observer, they "shrank up into little old men or wizened like a little monkey." In the end, Booth finds few answers to the problems posed by the opium trade--a scourge he says has "destroyed millions of lives, enslaved whole cultures and invidiously corrupted human society to its very core." In writing this exhaustively researched history, however, Booth brings us that much closer to understanding--and thereby conquering--the most tenacious of human addictions. --Mary Park

"The book's wealth of detail is remarkable." --The Economist

"Opium is of great value for its thoroughness, and it is briskly written....Each chapter [is] a ball of opium with an explosive charge." --The Boston Globe

"Booth takes us from P. somniferum to 'black gold,' compellingly documenting the influential role of the opiate trade throughout history." --Publishers Weekly

"From the subtleties of Chinese history to the complexities of Golden Triangle narco-nationalism...Booth shows us a sure grasp of his material and manages to pull the innumerable and far-flung threads...neatly together." --Kirkus Reviews