Frank Dikötter – Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China| Books in Bytes Podcast скачать в хорошем качестве

Frank Dikötter – Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China| Books in Bytes Podcast

In this revelatory podcast episode, our AI hosts explore Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China by Frank Dikötter, a richly detailed and iconoclastic study that overturns conventional narratives about opium and addiction in Chinese history. Co-authored with Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun, the book challenges the moralistic framing of drug use promoted by both colonial powers and modern Chinese regimes, instead presenting a nuanced portrait of opium as a deeply embedded part of Chinese society, medicine, and ritual. Dikötter reveals how the demonization of drugs served shifting political agendas—from imperialist interventions to Communist moral campaigns—and how state-driven drug suppression often caused more harm than the drugs themselves. Blending social history with political analysis, the book offers a complex, humanizing view of narcotics in a culture too often reduced to caricature. Perfect for historians, policy thinkers, and anyone interested in the tangled legacy of drugs, power, and social control in modern China. Join us as we unpack Dikötter’s provocative reinterpretation and discuss what China’s opium past reveals about the politics of addiction and prohibition today. — Book Information Title: Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China Author: Frank Dikötter (with Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun) Year of First Publication: 2004 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Genre: History, Drug Policy, Modern Chinese History The discussion was created with Google's NotebookLM Audio Summary feature. This is an experiment to make this work more accessible and get people interested in exploring these ideas.