Amitav Ghosh Public Lecture - From Bombay to Canton and Back: Traveling the Indian Ocean Opium Route

Public Lecture, 4.30pm-6.00pm
Nau Hall 101

From Bombay to Canton: Traveling the Indian Ocean Opium Route 

Guangzhou (also known as Canton) is one of the world’s great cosmopolitan entrepots. In the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, it was through this city, and its environs, that opium was funneled into China by British, American and Indian merchants. This trade was to have an enormous impact , not just  on China but the whole world: its influence on India was especially significant, for the subcontinent was the world's leading opium-producing region under the British Raj.  This talk explores Guangzhou as an Indian trader might have seen it in the 19^th century.