Webs of Smoke

This history of international drug trafficking in the first half of the 20th century follows the stories of American gangsters, Japanese spies, Chinese warlords, and soldiers of fortune whose lives revolved around opium. The drug trade centred on China, which was before 1949 the world's largest narcotic market. The authors tell the interlocking stories of the many extraordinary personalities, sinister and otherwise, involved in narcotics trafficking in Asia, Europe and the United States. The text draws on British, European, American, Japanese and Chinese archives.