Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies & the History of the International Drug Trade

by Kathryn Meyer, Terry Parssinen

This fascinating history of international drug trafficking in the first half of the 20th century follows the stories of American narcs and gangsters, Japanese spies, Chinese warlords, and soldiers of fortune whose lives revolved around opium. The drug trade centered on China, which was before 1949, the world's largest narcotic market. The authors tell the interlocking stories of the many extraordinary personalities_sinister and otherwise_involved in narcotics trafficking in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Drawing on a rich store of U.S., British, European, Japanese, and Chinese archives, this unique study will be invaluable for all readers interested in the drug trade and contemporary East Asian history.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend from a former job, now an academic and preparing to move, recently sent me a box of reputable books, among which was this one, coauthored by fellow who had been a professor at Grinnell College during my first year there. Given this connection and the topic of the study, I chose to read it first.

Terry Parssinen had been, as I recall, a school friend of my senior high school AP European history teacher, Timothy Little. As a consequence I was paid the rare honor of being invited to his home for dinner during my freshman year at Grinnell.

His book, Web of Smoke, is misleadingly subtitled. The focus is on East Asia, on China and Japan, the "international drug trade" being treated primarily in that regard. However, most of the consumption of opium during the period covered (roughly the first half of the 20th century) occurred in China, so perhaps the emphasis is not misplaced.

Being very weak in East Asian history before the war, the details of this work were hard to follow. For me, Chinese and Japanese names are hard to hold down. Fortunately, maps are provided. Despite my disabilities, however, I found the book a page turner.

I would have liked to have seen more mention of the works on this matter by Alfred McCoy, author of The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia and of The Politics of Heroin. Parssinen only mentions the latter, later book and then only to qualify a minor point made therein regarding Lucky Luciano. As McCoy's works are seminal, more mention would have been appreciated. Indeed, annotation of the bibliography would have been helpful for those interested in pursuing the topic.

A concluding chapter brings the message of the work as a whole home, relating it to contemporary debates about failed U.S. drug policies and the involvement of agents and agencies of government, directly and indirectly, in the trade.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this if you are interested in the history of the political economy of the drug trade. The biggest drug dealer in the history of the world? Why, it was the government of Great Britain...