Analysis Of Opium And China Revisited By Joshua Fogel

In this in-depth article, Joshua Fogel discusses the details and importance of opium in China. Published in 2006, “Opium and China Revisited: How Sophisticated Was Qing Thinking in Matters of Drug Control?” takes us back to the nineteenth century and China's relationship with the outside world during the Mao years. Fogel begins by highlighting the significance of the Chinese government and nationalism in China during the 19th and 20th centuries. This then leads to talk of the opium in China and other area of Eurasia including Britain and Japan. Finally, Fogel succeeds in analyzing the studies done by other scholars, but fails to bring any new evidence or arguments in his work. Fogel also heavily relies on a singular source authored by Inoue

“During the Mao years, China’s suffering at the hands of others in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while never downplayed, was usually blamed on China's own weaknesses and specific evil regimes” (Fogel 43). The start of Fogel’s essay is intriguing, it is almost as he his telling a story of the history of this topic. About halfway through the work, Fogel changes topics and covers the subject of the opium wars. Fogel provides a brief history lesson about the opium wars, specifically on the Qing’s anti-opium legislation and on the “external ban” and “internal ban.” He refers to several other scholars at this point, ultimately restating and agreeing with

“Let me now just briefly introduce the topics of Inoue’s chapters. Interested readers may find some more to their taste than others” (Fogel 48). Little did Fogel know, most of his readers probably lost interest after reading the rest of his article. He completely switches from attempting to locate evidence for an argument into a complete critical review of Hiromasa’s book, “Crisis for the Chinese Empire.” Fogel goes on to analyze Hiromasa’s for the next four pages of his article, as an attempt to strengthen his own points. He concludes the entire paper by the stating, “Let me note in conclusion that this book represents a revised version of Inoue’s doctorate, received in 2001,” (Fogel 50). By focusing on only one source for almost half of the article, Fogel is dependent on Hiromasa’s words, instead of his own opinions that he set up earlier in the