OPIUM INC. Hardcover

"OPIUM INC.: How a Global Drug Trade Funded the British Empire" by Thomas Manuel is a meticulously researched and revelatory account of the largest drug deal in world history. This book exposes how the British East India Company established a brutal triangular trade route connecting India, China, and Britain, exploiting Indian land and labor to cultivate opium, which was then forcibly sold to China to fund Britain's insatiable demand for tea. Manuel details how this illicit trade became the financial bedrock of the British Empire for over a century, despite widespread knowledge of opium's devastating effects. The narrative vividly illustrates the immense pain inflicted upon countless lives in India and China, while generating immense privilege for a select few, leaving a legacy of poverty and wealth that continues to be unacknowledged today.