A gripping read as well as an important one Rana Mitter,TheGuardian

InThe Opium War, professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature Julia Lovell offers a compelling account of the causes and fallout of the Opium Wars.

In October 1839, Britain entered the first Opium War with China. Its brutality notwithstanding, the conflict was also threaded with tragicomedy: with Victorian hypocrisy, bureaucratic fumblings, military missteps, political opportunism and collaboration. Yet over the past hundred and seventy years, this strange tale of misunderstanding, incompetence and compromise has become the founding episode of modern Chinese nationalism.

Starting from this first conflict,The Opium Warexplores how Chinas national myths mould its interactions with the outside world, how public memory is spun to serve the present, and how delusion and prejudice have bedevilled its relationship with the modern West.