The Browser - Politics

Julia Lovell on the Opium War

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:02:01 +0000

The 19th century opium war marked the clash of the world’s great empires of the age – Britain and China. The historian says its legacy of Chinese humiliation is still felt keenly in Beijing

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The Opium War

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:50:06 +0000

By Julia Lovell

Authored by

Julia Lovell

The Great Wall

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:48:45 +0000

By Julia Lovell

Authored by

Julia Lovell

Britain’s Gulag

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:47:28 +0000

By Caroline Elkins

This book raises very important and broad questions about how we in Britain remember our imperial past

Julia Lovell says: This book raises very important and broad questions about how we in Britain remember our imperial past

Adam Foulds says: The Mau Mau uprising was a conflict that was to some degree repressed, and I think this is a significant work in writing its history – I think the author would see herself as reclaiming that history. In her final chapter she writes directly about its suppression and about the afterlife of the conflict, and the fact that there was no official parliamentary inquiry – so there was no real self-examination at the time on the part of the British.

Adam Foulds

Julia Lovell

The Inner Opium War

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:45:07 +0000

By James Polachek

Polachek behaves like a detective in this book, picking his way through the intricate mass of internal Chinese sources

Julia Lovell

The Opium War

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:42:49 +0000

By Peter Ward Fay

It’s written in a very gripping way. It also spells out very clearly the trade triangle between India, China and Britain

Julia Lovell

Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:41:23 +0000

By Carl Trocki

Carl Trocki makes the point how economically central opium was to the building and maintaining of the British Empire

Julia Lovell

Narcotic Culture

FiveBooks — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:40:20 +0000

By Frank Dikotter, Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun

This book is very informative and wide ranging about the substance over which the war was fought – opium

Julia Lovell

Barack Obama, The Great Deceiver | Yves Smith | Naked Capitalism | 14 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:10:27 +0000

Scathing takedown of US president. "It isn’t simply that Obama lied. Politicians lie. But there are norms for political lying. The depth and dependability of Obama’s misrepresentation constitute a difference in kind"

The Myth Of Chinese Meritocracy | Minxin Pei | Project Syndicate | 14 May 2012

The Browser — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:02:49 +0000

An enduring myth, that surely went down with defenestration of Bo Xilai, is the notion that Party rule is based on meritocracy. To rise in China is to enter a world of bogus degrees, faked GDP data, nepotism and bribery