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Julia Lovell

The Opium War

This “crisp and readable account” of the nineteenth century British campaign sheds light on modern Chinese identity through “a heartbreaking story of war” (The Wall Street Journal).
In October 1839, a Windsor cabinet meeting voted to begin the first Opium War against China. Bureaucratic fumbling, military missteps, and a healthy dose of political opportunism and collaboration followed. Rich in tragicomedy, The Opium War explores the disastrous British foreign-relations move that became a founding myth of modern Chinese nationalism, and depicts China’s heroic struggle against Western conspiracy.
Julia Lovell examines the causes and consequences of the Opium War, interweaving tales of the opium pushers and dissidents. More importantly, she analyses how the Opium Wars shaped China’s self-image and created an enduring model for its interactions with the West, plagued by delusion and prejudice.
703 printed pages
Original publication
2015
Publication year
2015
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
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Impressions

  • Tianran Heshared an impression6 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    🔮Hidden Depths
    💡Learnt A Lot
    🎯Worthwhile

  • emeraldfleurshared an impression7 years ago
    🙈Lost On Me

Quotes

  • emeraldfleurhas quoted7 years ago
    Where shall we go and get polluted tonight?’ mocked Yang Xianyi, one of the country’s most famous literary intellectuals, down the phone to his friends as propaganda chiefs in the People’s Daily railed against contamination by ‘vulgar individualism
  • emeraldfleurhas quoted7 years ago
    Republic of China, which executes somewhere between 1,700 and 10,000 people every year.
  • emeraldfleurhas quoted7 years ago
    remained as hooked on tea and silk as ever (sales of tea more than doubled between 1842 and 1856; silk imports increased more than twentyfold).29 A return to the bad old days of trade deficit resulted: in 1854, Britain found its balance of payments to China more than £8 million in the red (rising to £9 million in 1857). R

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