The History Book Club discussion

This is the thread to discuss the Second Opium War.

The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856–1860."

Source: Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_O...

Here are two books that I have read on the Opium Wars:


by Jack Beeching
Description:
An account of the demoralizing introduction of opium addiction in nineteenth-century China by British and American traders, its impact on Chinese society and life, and the resulting series of Opium Wars.

by W. Travis Hanes
Description:
In this tragic and powerful story, the two Opium Wars of 1839 1842 and 1856 1860 between Britain and China are recounted for the first time through the eyes of the Chinese as well as the Imperial West. Opium entered China during the Middle Ages when Arab traders brought it into China for medicinal purposes. As it took hold as a recreational drug, opium wrought havoc on Chinese society. By the early nineteenth century, 90 percent of the Emperor s court and the majority of the army were opium addicts. Britain was also a nation addicted to tea, grown in China, and paid for with profits made from the opium trade. When China tried to ban the use of the drug and bar its Western smugglers from it gates, England decided to fight to keep open China s ports for its importation. England, the superpower of its time, managed to do so in two wars, resulting in a drug-induced devastation of the Chinese people that would last 150 years. In this page-turning, dramatic and colorful history, The Opium Wars responds to past, biased Western accounts by representing the neglected Chinese version of the story and showing how the wars stand as one of the monumental clashes between the cultures of East and West.

Reviews:
"A fine popular account." - Publishers Weekly

"Their account of the causes, military campaigns and tragic effects of these wars is absorbing, frequently macabre and deeply unsettling." - Booklist

Thank you for the adds Aussie Rick.