The Opium Debate And Chinese Exclusion Laws In The Nineteenth-Century American West

Most of the literature on demands to exclude Chinese focus on economics and politics, though some recent studies have added Chinese prostitution to the argument. Ahmad (history, U. of Missouri-Rolla) expands the topic further by considering the impact of smoking-opium and its culture. Smoking-opium, she explains, is to be distinguished from the medicinal opium that Americans had long used, and arrived as a recreational drug along with Chinese workers at the beginning of the gold rush. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)