The ‘Opium War’ that Wasn’t
One hundred and sixty-six years ago this week, Lord Palmerston, the great British Foreign Secretary, sent a letter to the Imperial Chinese government that paved the way for the 1840-42 Anglo-Chinese conflict, the “Opium War.†It’s a brilliantly snappy name that sneakily prejudges the issue: The world is now convinced that the war was a case of commercial and imperialist British greed trying to force opium on the Chinese.If his talk is a provocative as his premise, it should certainly be an interesting time for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary drug policy and the geopolitics of illicit trade.The world is wrong.
Professor Harry Gelber is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies. He will be giving a talk on the “Opium War†at the Center for European Studies at 2:15 p.m. on Friday, February 24th.
