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A history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast
Asia During the late nineteenth century, opium was integral to
European colonial rule in Southeast Asia. The taxation of opium was
a major source of revenue for British and French colonizers, who
also derived moral authority from imposing a tax on a peculiar vice
of their non-European subjects. Yet between the 1890s and the
1940s, colonial states began to ban opium, upsetting the very
foundations of overseas rule-how did this happen? Empires of Vice
traces the history of this dramatic reversal, revealing the
colonial legacies that set the stage for the region's drug problems
today. Diana Kim challenges the conventional wisdom about opium
prohibition-that it came about because doctors awoke to the dangers
of drug addiction or that it was a response to moral
crusaders-uncovering a more complex story deep within the colonial
bureaucracy. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence across
Southeast Asia and Europe, she shows how prohibition was made
possible by the pivotal contributions of seemingly weak
bureaucratic officials. Comparing British and French experiences
across today's Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and
Vietnam, Kim examines how the everyday work of local administrators
delegitimized the taxing of opium, which in turn made major
anti-opium reforms possible. Empires of Vice reveals the inner life
of colonial bureaucracy, illuminating how European rulers
reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance and
shaped Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the
punitive state.
A history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast
Asia During the late nineteenth century, opium was integral to
European colonial rule in Southeast Asia. The taxation of opium was
a major source of revenue for British and French colonizers, who
also derived moral authority from imposing a tax on a peculiar vice
of their non-European subjects. Yet between the 1890s and the
1940s, colonial states began to ban opium, upsetting the very
foundations of overseas rule-how did this happen? Empires of Vice
traces the history of this dramatic reversal, revealing the
colonial legacies that set the stage for the region's drug problems
today. Diana Kim challenges the conventional wisdom about opium
prohibition-that it came about because doctors awoke to the dangers
of drug addiction or that it was a response to moral
crusaders-uncovering a more complex story deep within the colonial
bureaucracy. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence across
Southeast Asia and Europe, she shows how prohibition was made
possible by the pivotal contributions of seemingly weak
bureaucratic officials. Comparing British and French experiences
across today's Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and
Vietnam, Kim examines how the everyday work of local administrators
delegitimized the taxing of opium, which in turn made major
anti-opium reforms possible. Empires of Vice reveals the inner life
of colonial bureaucracy, illuminating how European rulers
reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance and
shaped Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the
punitive state.
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