鸦片、帝国和现代史

 Features 307 © 2004 by University of Hawai'i Press features 

鸦片、帝国和现代史

Opium, Empire, and Modern History

Opium, Empire, and Modern History 

Alan Baumler, editor. 现代中国与鸦片

Modern China and Opium》： A Reader. 密歇根大学出版社，2001 年： 密歇根大学出版社，2001 年。190 pp. 精装本 55.00 美元，ISBN 0-472-09768-7。平装本 22.95 美元，ISBN 0-472-06768-0。Timothy Brook 和 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi 编辑。

鸦片制度： 中国、英国和日本，1839-1952 年

Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952》。伯克利： xiv, 444 pp. 精装本 60.00 美元，ISBN 0-520-22009-9。平装本 22.95 美元，ISBN 0-520-22236-9。

Glenn Melancon. 英国的对华政策与鸦片危机》： Glenn Melancon. Aldershot, England： Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 158 pp. Hardcover $59.95，ISBN 0-7546-0704-6。

Britain’s China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour

Carl A. Trocki. 鸦片、帝国与全球政治经济： 鸦片、帝国与全球政治经济：1750-1950 年亚洲鸦片贸易研究》

Opium, Empire, and the Global Political Economy

。New York： Routledge, 1999. 208 pp. 精装本 49.95 美元，ISBN 0-415-19918-2。平装本 $33.95，ISBN 0-415-21500-5。

Modern China and Opium: A Reader. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 190 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 0– 472–09768–7. Paperback $22.95, isbn 0–472–06768–0. Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, editors. 

Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xiv, 444 pp. Hardcover $60.00, isbn 0–520–22009–9. Paperback $22.95, isbn 0–520–22236–9. Glenn Melancon. 

Britain’s China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 158 pp. Hardcover $59.95, isbn 0–7546–0704–6. Carl A. Trocki. 

Opium, Empire, and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750–1950. New York: Routledge, 1999. 208 pp. Hardcover $49.95, isbn 0–415–19918–2. Paperback $33.95, isbn 0–415–21500–5. 

在 19 世纪，鸦片是全球经济中最有利于帝国流通的商品之一。它有能力平衡帝国的账目，吸引似乎无穷无尽的顾客，而且在一个货物空间与时间一样都是金钱的世界里，鸦片几乎不占用商业王子、走私者和海盗船上的任何空间。而且，像所有真正适合帝国的产品一样，它用途广泛，能够适应新的条件。然而，长期以来，鸦片通常与中国和中国人以及毒品滥用的恐怖联系在一起。1鸦片已经成为一种真正的全球现象，如果要理解其历史意义，历史学家似乎需要从全球和地区的角度来思考问题。本文评述的四部著作中有三部涉及鸦片在近代史中的作用，并对鸦片在中国和亚洲殖民主义政治经济中的意义提出了新的看法。格伦-梅兰康（Glenn Melancon）撰写的第四部作品探讨了鸦片在中国和亚洲殖民主义政治经济中的意义： 10, No. 2, Fall 2003 © 2004 by University of Hawai'i Press 一个多世纪以来，鸦片和中国一直是学术研究的中心问题：第一次鸦片战争（1839-1842 年）的起因。鉴于这场冲突在塑造 19 世纪中国史学方面的重要性，我将首先讨论梅朗雄为修正我们对英国 1839 年开战原因的理解所做的努力。通过重温关于冲突起因的争论，我们就有可能关注本文所讨论的其他学术研究所做出的重要贡献。十九世纪的观察家和后来的学者对鸦片贸易在解释第一次鸦片战争中的意义存在分歧。中国学者在这一问题上的观点十分明确：清政府打击鸦片贸易，导致了战争。2 一些英国历史学家同意这种观点。英国的工商业阶级刚刚在政治斗争中取得胜利，改变了议会的组成（1832 年改革法案），结束了东印度公司在亚洲的垄断地位，他们坚持要在全球范围内，尤其是在中国，大力拓展英国的经济利益。这群人强烈主张自由贸易，要求动用国家军事力量来改变中国的局势，从而促进国家和个人利益。3 显然，这种解释的意义在于将经济和阶级利益作为鸦片战争的主要原因摆在了首位。在自由主义和马克思主义关于 19 世纪欧洲扩张和帝国建设的论述中，经济原因模式都得到了支持，而且在全球化时代依然流行。这种解释与现代化的宏大叙事不谋而合，使战争似乎不可避免。在《英国的对华政策与鸦片危机》一书中，格伦-梅兰康对英国的对华经济政策进行了分析。

Features 307 © 2004 by University of Hawai‘i Press features 

Opium, Empire, and Modern History 

Alan Baumler, editor. 

Modern China and Opium: A Reader. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 190 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 0– 472–09768–7. Paperback $22.95, isbn 0–472–06768–0. Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, editors. 

Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xiv, 444 pp. Hardcover $60.00, isbn 0–520–22009–9. Paperback $22.95, isbn 0–520–22236–9. Glenn Melancon. 

Britain’s China Policy and the Opium Crisis: Balancing Drugs, Violence and National Honour, 1833–1840. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 158 pp. Hardcover $59.95, isbn 0–7546–0704–6. Carl A. Trocki. 

Opium, Empire, and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750–1950. New York: Routledge, 1999. 208 pp. Hardcover $49.95, isbn 0–415–19918–2. Paperback $33.95, isbn 0–415–21500–5. 

Opium was, in the nineteenth century, one of the most empire-friendly commodities circulating in the global economy. It had the capacity to balance imperial books, attract a seemingly endless number of customers, and, in a world where cargo space, like time, was money, take up little if any of the room on the ships of merchant princes, smugglers, and pirates. And, like all truly empirefriendly products, it was versatile and adaptable to new conditions. Yet, it has long been the case that opium has normally been linked to China and the Chinese, as well as the horrors of drug abuse. Recently, however, it has become increasingly clear that, by the nineteenth century, the drug was important to the economies and cultures of regions well beyond the “East.”1 Opium had become a truly global phenomenon, one that would seem to require historians to think in global as well as regional terms, if its historical significance was to be understood. Three of the four works under review here deal with the role of opium in modern history and offer new views of its significance in China and in the political economy of colonialism in Asia. The fourth, by Glenn Melancon, addresses an 308 China Review International: Vol. 10, No. 2, Fall 2003 © 2004 by University of Hawai‘i Press issue that has been at the center of scholarship on opium and China for over a century: the cause of the first Opium War (1839–1842). Given the importance of that conflict in shaping the historiography on nineteenth-century China, I will begin with a discussion of Melancon’s efforts to revise our understanding of why Great Britain went to war in 1839. By revisiting the debate over the causes of conflict it will then be possible to focus attention on the important contributions made by the other scholarship considered here. Nineteenth-century observers and later scholars have differed on the significance of the opium trade in explaining the first Opium War. Chinese scholarship has been unequivocal on the issue: when the Qing government cracked down on the trade, war resulted.2 Some British historians agree. In this view, an ascendant commercial-industrial class in Britain, fresh from successful political battles that altered the makeup of Parliament (the Reform Act of 1832) and ended the monopoly of the East India Company in Asia, insisted on greatly expanding British economic interests globally, and especially in China. Strong advocates of free trade, this group demanded that state military power should be brought to bear to alter the situation in China and thereby further national and individual interests. Government was more than willing to oblige, historians argue, because it was in the thrall of these class interests.3 Clearly the significance of this interpretation is the foregrounding of economic and class interests as the primary cause of the opium wars. The economic-causation model finds advocates in both liberal and Marxist versions of nineteenth-century European expansion and empire building and, in the age of globalization, remains popular. It is also an interpretation that fits neatly into the grand narrative of modernization, making war appear inevitable. In Britain’s China Policy and the Opium Crisis, Glenn Melancon takes on the economic...