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Opium: The Poisoned Poppy
Opium created the foundation of one of the world’s most amazing commercial enterprises – the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. This is the story of opium in British and Manchu China from the early 1830s to the present. Opium no longer dominates the drug scene. Its duratives, morphine and heroin, have far outstripped in power and need the original fruit of the poisoned poppy. What is now squalid, desperate, and dangerous was once the subject of swashbuckling, gun-toting free trade. It’s a memorable story, played out mainly against a fascinating nineteenth-century Asia, with all its glamour and forbidden precinct, its ancient traditions of privacy and virtue. But the foreigners came; they invested in Macao and they claimed Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories as their price for continuing the battle for ‘equal trade’. No one who knows Hong and has an interest in past times will fail to be enthralled by this vigorous and often haunting narrative.
Following National Service in the Royal Air Force, which gave him material for his first novel, THE BEAR GADEN, Michael Robson (1933-2017) went up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. After some years as an instructor in English and drama, he joined Anglia Television as a presenter/producer of features and documentaries. Historical research has always interested him, and his military studies of the First World War – OUT THERE and FLYPAST, and of the second – THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, THE BATTLE OF ARNHEM and JOURNEY TO A VICTORY, reached wide television audiences. After producing and directing CAMERON COUNTRY for BBCTV2 with the late, brilliant foreign correspondent James Cameron, Robson began a new career as a freelance writer/director of documentaries, and as a playwright for film, television and radio. His feature screenplays include the 39 STEPS, THE WATER BABIES and HOLOCAUST 2000.
Following National Service in the Royal Air Force, which gave him material for his first novel, THE BEAR GADEN, Michael Robson (1933-2017) went up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. After some years as an instructor in English and drama, he joined Anglia Television as a presenter/producer of features and documentaries. Historical research has always interested him, and his military studies of the First World War – OUT THERE and FLYPAST, and of the second – THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, THE BATTLE OF ARNHEM and JOURNEY TO A VICTORY, reached wide television audiences. After producing and directing CAMERON COUNTRY for BBCTV2 with the late, brilliant foreign correspondent James Cameron, Robson began a new career as a freelance writer/director of documentaries, and as a playwright for film, television and radio. His feature screenplays include the 39 STEPS, THE WATER BABIES and HOLOCAUST 2000.
85 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
4 people want to read
About the author
Michael Robson
4 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Michael Robson
Following National Service in the Royal Air Force, which gave him material for his first novel, THE BEAR GADEN, Michael Robson (1933-2017) went up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. After some years as an instructor in English and drama, he joined Anglia Television as a presenter/producer of features and documentaries. Historical research has always interested him, and his military studies of the First World War – OUT THERE and FLYPAST, and of the second – THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, THE BATTLE OF ARNHEM and JOURNEY TO A VICTORY, reached wide television audiences. After producing and directing CAMERON COUNTRY for BBCTV2 with the late, brilliant foreign correspondent James Cameron, Robson began a new career as a freelance writer/director of documentaries, and as a playwright for film, television and radio. His feature screenplays include the 39 STEPS, THE WATER BABIES and HOLOCAUST 2000.
See also Michael J.H. Robson
Please see: Michael Robson
Following National Service in the Royal Air Force, which gave him material for his first novel, THE BEAR GADEN, Michael Robson (1933-2017) went up to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. After some years as an instructor in English and drama, he joined Anglia Television as a presenter/producer of features and documentaries. Historical research has always interested him, and his military studies of the First World War – OUT THERE and FLYPAST, and of the second – THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, THE BATTLE OF ARNHEM and JOURNEY TO A VICTORY, reached wide television audiences. After producing and directing CAMERON COUNTRY for BBCTV2 with the late, brilliant foreign correspondent James Cameron, Robson began a new career as a freelance writer/director of documentaries, and as a playwright for film, television and radio. His feature screenplays include the 39 STEPS, THE WATER BABIES and HOLOCAUST 2000.
See also Michael J.H. Robson
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