Capitalizing on addiction : the United States, China, and the transpacific opium economy, 1804-1909
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- "Capitalizing on Addiction" offers a new interpretation of the Opium War as an event that had surprising connections to and consequences for Americans in the nineteenth century. It follows the arc of when Americans first sold opium in China to when the Chinese first sold opium in America following the mass emigration of Chinese across the Pacific Ocean. At the heart of "Capitalizing on Addiction" is a novel account of capital formation, detailing how opium transmuted the body's debts into a supple form of currency that could traverse oceans, penetrate borders, and dissolve racial allegiances with both Chinese and Americans collaborating to profit from its exchange. Using records from 16 different archives, this study draws on the methods of economic, business, legal and social history to revise our understanding of the relationship between capitalism and opium. Its central contention that the trade in opium did not occur in the extralegal peripheries of the transpacific economy; through embodying a form of capital itself, the production, consumption and exchange of the drug contributed directly to the flourishing of the transpacific economy, and that Americans were instrumental in promoting its expansion
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2021; ©2021 |
| Publication date | 2021; 2021 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Su, Alastair Yuanhao |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Burns, Jennifer, 1975- |
| Thesis advisor | Burns, Jennifer, 1975- |
| Thesis advisor | Chang, Gordon H |
| Thesis advisor | White, Richard, 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Wright, Gavin, 1943- |
| Degree committee member | Chang, Gordon H |
| Degree committee member | White, Richard, 1947- |
| Degree committee member | Wright, Gavin, 1943- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Alastair Yuanhao Su |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021 |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/sz395np2878 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2021 by Alastair Yuanhao Su
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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