The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China

In October 1839, a cabinet meeting in Windsor voted to fight Britain’s first Opium War with China. The conflict turned out to be rich in tragicomedy: in bureaucratic fumblings, military missteps, political opportunism and collaboration. Yet over the past 170 years, this strange tale of misunderstanding, incompetence and compromise has become the founding myth of modern Chinese nationalism: the start of China’s heroic struggle against a Western conspiracy to destroy the country with opium and…