A History of Intoxication

Within an imperialism-centred paradigm, A History of Intoxi­cation: Opium in Assam, 1800-1959 is an attempt to unearth a critical relationship between a crucial lever of colonialism in Asia and a frontier province filled with tea gardens and on a route laden with opium poppy. The present volume is premised on explaining several queries that revolve around the emerging pattern of consumption of opium in colonial Assam and the creation of drug-dependency in a social context. It analyses in a comprehensive manner the competing forces of the empire which played a key role in the production and distribution of opium.