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The Whites Are Enemies of Heaven: Climate Caucasianism and Asian Ecological Protection
In The Whites Are Enemies of Heaven Mark W. Driscoll examines nineteenth-century Western imperialism in Asia and the devastating effects of "climate caucasianism"—the white West's pursuit of rapacious extraction at the expense of natural environments and people of color conflated with them. Drawing on an array of primary sources in Chinese, Japanese, and French, Driscoll reframes the Opium Wars as "wars for drugs" and demonstrates that these wars to unleash narco- and human traffickers kickstarted the most important event of the the military substitution of Qing China's world-leading carbon-neutral economy for an unsustainable Anglo-American capitalism powered by coal. Driscoll also reveals how subaltern actors, including outlaw societies and dispossessed samurai groups, became ecological protectors, defending their locales while driving decolonization in Japan and overthrowing a millennia of dynastic rule in China. Driscoll contends that the methods of these protectors resonate with contemporary Indigenous-led movements for environmental justice.
384 pages, Paperback
Published January 8, 2021
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December 11, 2021
“It is the responsibility of humans to steward a just, harmonious relationship between the spheres of Heaven and Earth"
I almost never read anything non fiction, especially if its primarily about environmentalism. My brain is too riddled with ADHD to sit down and read through titles like "the Lumber industry in early modern japan" and I have never cracked into core marxist literature either (haven't read capital). I have cursory understanding of some of the main ideas, an awareness of degrowth ideology as well as some modern economic and cultural capitalist critiques. I feel this is necessary to mention because of how Sakai and most things derived from third-worldist theory seem to immediately draw ire from certain leftists. While it's fair to evaluate Sakai's views as insufficient when it comes to theory, the more pressing identity based challenges are important to consider. Any impulse to immediately reject racial culpability when it concerns radical leftist belief demonstrates a lack of awareness of the vulnerability to reactionary politics that these ideals carry.
This book is a sino-centered eco-marxist examination of the historical emergence of capitalism’s harrowing effect on the climate. It goes beyond surface explanations of how the Drug Wars funded Britain’s empire, specifically arguing how it “opened new frontiers to plunder nature; extracted large numbers of cheap Asian service and sex work-ers; and enclosed areas in China and Japan for the newest forms of CO2linization…, increasing carbon emissions and intervening in the global climate.” The provocative title as well as the unconventional categorization immediately stands out - the author seriously uses the term CO2linization here - quirks like this add a lot of charm to the author's unique writing style, and respectfully, its incredibly cringe but endearing since its sincere.
The reason for the focus on the East with this book, despite colonialism having roots in atlantic slave trading is that it was the critical step the west had to take establishing its dominant mode – the globalization of capital – through military subjugation of the prospering China and Japan. This forceful destabilization had tremendous effects on world ecology. This is why mentioning Sakai is pretty relevant to discussing this book, most discourse I've had with proponents of socialist leftists in person revolve around some kind of desire to implement it based on the nordic model, this largely just benefits the already prosperous class of people that rely on exploitative labour from the third world.
Originally upon reading the description for the book I thought the argument for the climate component sounded like a huge reach. The concepts at face value would seem unrelated and unable to meaningfully interact with each other, however the arguments within are convincing with how it describes the relationship of the production of greenhouse gases and imperialism. "Just before the First War for Drugs, the UK was responsible for over 80 percent of global CO2 emissions China, on the other hand, was responsible for less than 1 percent, even though it had the world’s largest economy". The divergent moral philosophies between the east and the western capitalists are given as the reason for this disparity. Eastern moral Ecology carbon positive action vs western Action of Extraction or extra action - or capitalist logic centered on extraction (of nonwhite humans and most women, nonliving fossils, living, extrahuman nature, rent, data; etc).
The name of this book is from a contact between Qing Commissioner Lin Zexu and Britain's Queen Victoria, who, astonished with the methods western capitalists obtained trade surplus wrote during the first Opium War where he states that "drug traffickers are both enemies of Heaven’s way [天道] and universally despised by humans with a heart". This new regime of a globally extractive capitalism inaugurated formations that were incomprehensible as nothing in China was comparable.
This ecological destruction thru capital processes were made possible due to the complexity in logistics of the narco-trafficking to Asia. The general mechanism is explained in the text - "Profit could be accrued at several points in the opium commodity chain: from weapons and ships, from contracts and insurance, from financing and credit, and from buying and selling the laborers needed to move the narcotics long distances. While the English “country trader” who purchased British East India Company (eic) opium in Kolkata, India, and then acquired the necessary crew and infrastructure to get the narcotics to China took the most surplus, many others profited. More importantly, Euro- American capitalism pioneered a process whereby surplus profits were ineluctably invested back into the system in search of even more surplus, kickstarting a process of endless accumulation. Unfortunately, most of the profit opportunities were in climate- interfering industries that emitted high levels of green house gases (Bonneuil and Fressoz 2017, 118).
Aside from just offering plenty of critique one of the appeals in reading this is the familiarity the author has with very niche historical instances. Its clearly very well researched and worth reading even if to purely deepen your understanding of West-East trade in general.
Anyways this is a banger, a great book that can be grasped with little understanding of marxism and remains interesting throughout without being needlessly complex or dense.
edit: idk if unselecting "Add to my update feed" actually prevents this from popping up on people's main page, if so I just wanted to correct some ideas that weren't very clear and add some context.
I almost never read anything non fiction, especially if its primarily about environmentalism. My brain is too riddled with ADHD to sit down and read through titles like "the Lumber industry in early modern japan" and I have never cracked into core marxist literature either (haven't read capital). I have cursory understanding of some of the main ideas, an awareness of degrowth ideology as well as some modern economic and cultural capitalist critiques. I feel this is necessary to mention because of how Sakai and most things derived from third-worldist theory seem to immediately draw ire from certain leftists. While it's fair to evaluate Sakai's views as insufficient when it comes to theory, the more pressing identity based challenges are important to consider. Any impulse to immediately reject racial culpability when it concerns radical leftist belief demonstrates a lack of awareness of the vulnerability to reactionary politics that these ideals carry.
This book is a sino-centered eco-marxist examination of the historical emergence of capitalism’s harrowing effect on the climate. It goes beyond surface explanations of how the Drug Wars funded Britain’s empire, specifically arguing how it “opened new frontiers to plunder nature; extracted large numbers of cheap Asian service and sex work-ers; and enclosed areas in China and Japan for the newest forms of CO2linization…, increasing carbon emissions and intervening in the global climate.” The provocative title as well as the unconventional categorization immediately stands out - the author seriously uses the term CO2linization here - quirks like this add a lot of charm to the author's unique writing style, and respectfully, its incredibly cringe but endearing since its sincere.
The reason for the focus on the East with this book, despite colonialism having roots in atlantic slave trading is that it was the critical step the west had to take establishing its dominant mode – the globalization of capital – through military subjugation of the prospering China and Japan. This forceful destabilization had tremendous effects on world ecology. This is why mentioning Sakai is pretty relevant to discussing this book, most discourse I've had with proponents of socialist leftists in person revolve around some kind of desire to implement it based on the nordic model, this largely just benefits the already prosperous class of people that rely on exploitative labour from the third world.
Originally upon reading the description for the book I thought the argument for the climate component sounded like a huge reach. The concepts at face value would seem unrelated and unable to meaningfully interact with each other, however the arguments within are convincing with how it describes the relationship of the production of greenhouse gases and imperialism. "Just before the First War for Drugs, the UK was responsible for over 80 percent of global CO2 emissions China, on the other hand, was responsible for less than 1 percent, even though it had the world’s largest economy". The divergent moral philosophies between the east and the western capitalists are given as the reason for this disparity. Eastern moral Ecology carbon positive action vs western Action of Extraction or extra action - or capitalist logic centered on extraction (of nonwhite humans and most women, nonliving fossils, living, extrahuman nature, rent, data; etc).
The name of this book is from a contact between Qing Commissioner Lin Zexu and Britain's Queen Victoria, who, astonished with the methods western capitalists obtained trade surplus wrote during the first Opium War where he states that "drug traffickers are both enemies of Heaven’s way [天道] and universally despised by humans with a heart". This new regime of a globally extractive capitalism inaugurated formations that were incomprehensible as nothing in China was comparable.
This ecological destruction thru capital processes were made possible due to the complexity in logistics of the narco-trafficking to Asia. The general mechanism is explained in the text - "Profit could be accrued at several points in the opium commodity chain: from weapons and ships, from contracts and insurance, from financing and credit, and from buying and selling the laborers needed to move the narcotics long distances. While the English “country trader” who purchased British East India Company (eic) opium in Kolkata, India, and then acquired the necessary crew and infrastructure to get the narcotics to China took the most surplus, many others profited. More importantly, Euro- American capitalism pioneered a process whereby surplus profits were ineluctably invested back into the system in search of even more surplus, kickstarting a process of endless accumulation. Unfortunately, most of the profit opportunities were in climate- interfering industries that emitted high levels of green house gases (Bonneuil and Fressoz 2017, 118).
Aside from just offering plenty of critique one of the appeals in reading this is the familiarity the author has with very niche historical instances. Its clearly very well researched and worth reading even if to purely deepen your understanding of West-East trade in general.
Anyways this is a banger, a great book that can be grasped with little understanding of marxism and remains interesting throughout without being needlessly complex or dense.
edit: idk if unselecting "Add to my update feed" actually prevents this from popping up on people's main page, if so I just wanted to correct some ideas that weren't very clear and add some context.
November 9, 2025
10/10
The way the author chose to write this book is what people think J.Sakai’s Settlers is written like. The perspective and history of the book alone warrants this rating, but the fact that made-up terms like “(CO2)loniality,” “supinestupefiedyellow” and “$ubject” is, honestly, bold and admirable.
Euro-Amerika’s opening up of China and Japan was brutal process of subjugation, paralleling acts like the conquest of the America’s and the scramble for Africa. Pre-humiliation, China and Japan were prosperous and sustainable, standing in opposition to the coal guzzling whites who came to pauperize, rape and enslave native East Asians. This was recognized by members of the Qing and Tokugawa governments before both were turned into the West’s willing compradors. Against the entire world, people and non-people, living and non-living, whites were the enemies of heaven.
Resistance to this human evil was often framed in these terms. The Gelaohui of Sichuan province, for instance, existed entirely in opposition to the individualistic, selfish and well-mannered west. Carrying out attacks against human-trafficking French missionaries and Qing collaborators, the GLH was made up of the poorest outcasts of societies, who spent much of their free time, when not plotting against the invaders, smoking homegrown opium in the mountains. The book changes my perspective on opium as well, with the growth of a native opium industry actually portrayed as a net positive, at least for Sichuan’s economy and sociality.
The chapters on Japan were interesting for changing my previous perception of the country. Hostility to Westernization was strong, and the militarism and racism of the 20th century was by no means natural to a country that, was, for much of history, really more of a brother-nation to China. I very much appreciate this recovery of overlooked anti-colonial history.
The way the author chose to write this book is what people think J.Sakai’s Settlers is written like. The perspective and history of the book alone warrants this rating, but the fact that made-up terms like “(CO2)loniality,” “supinestupefiedyellow” and “$ubject” is, honestly, bold and admirable.
Euro-Amerika’s opening up of China and Japan was brutal process of subjugation, paralleling acts like the conquest of the America’s and the scramble for Africa. Pre-humiliation, China and Japan were prosperous and sustainable, standing in opposition to the coal guzzling whites who came to pauperize, rape and enslave native East Asians. This was recognized by members of the Qing and Tokugawa governments before both were turned into the West’s willing compradors. Against the entire world, people and non-people, living and non-living, whites were the enemies of heaven.
Resistance to this human evil was often framed in these terms. The Gelaohui of Sichuan province, for instance, existed entirely in opposition to the individualistic, selfish and well-mannered west. Carrying out attacks against human-trafficking French missionaries and Qing collaborators, the GLH was made up of the poorest outcasts of societies, who spent much of their free time, when not plotting against the invaders, smoking homegrown opium in the mountains. The book changes my perspective on opium as well, with the growth of a native opium industry actually portrayed as a net positive, at least for Sichuan’s economy and sociality.
The chapters on Japan were interesting for changing my previous perception of the country. Hostility to Westernization was strong, and the militarism and racism of the 20th century was by no means natural to a country that, was, for much of history, really more of a brother-nation to China. I very much appreciate this recovery of overlooked anti-colonial history.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews