
Smoke and Ashes
Opium's Hidden Histories
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Narrated by:
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Ranjit Madgavkar
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By:
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Amitav Ghosh
About this listen
Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family—the climax of a years long project.
When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story.
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China to redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the empire’s financial survival.
Tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world’s biggest corporations, of America’s most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.
Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the repercussions of colonialism, Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe.
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Laozi's Dao De Jing
- A Plain Translation
- By: Ken Liu
- Narrated by: BD Wong
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
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Introducing a new translation of Laozi’s classic work that makes the intimidating approachable and the complex comprehensible. Translated by best-selling author Ken Liu and read by acclaimed actor B.D. Wong, this new take on the Dao De Jing speaks directly to the sensibilities of a modern audience. Liu dispenses with footnotes and the granular details of academic debate in favor of presenting Laozi’s invaluable writing as clearly and colorfully as possible.
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EXCELLENT
- By JK on 06-02-23
By: Ken Liu
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The Second Shot
- A Green Beret's Last Mission
- By: Gene Yu
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Evelyn Chang and her husband were vacationing in the Philippines when they were ambushed by terrorists. Evelyn’s husband was killed. She was kidnapped and disappeared into the lawless netherworld of the Sulu Archipelago. There was no hope of a rescue. Former Green Beret Gene Yu was five years out of the military, unemployed, and struggling with his transition back to the real world when Evelyn’s family asked for help. His improbable mission: infiltrate one of the most dangerous corners of the world and get her back. Alone.
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Great story
- By Amazon Customer on 12-26-24
By: Gene Yu
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Kuleana
- A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i
- By: Sara Kehaulani Goo
- Narrated by: Sara Kehaulani Goo
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From an early age, Sara Kehaulani Goo was enchanted by her family’s land in Hawai‘i. The vast area on the rugged shores of Maui’s east side—given by King Kamehameha III in 1848—extends from mountain to sea, encompassing ninety acres of lush, undeveloped rainforest jungle along the rocky coastline and a massive sixteenth-century temple with a mysterious past. When a property tax bill arrives with a 500 percent increase, Sara and her family members are forced to make a decision about the property: fight to keep the land or sell to the next offshore millionaire.
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The Circle of Reason
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary first novel makes a claim on literary turf held by Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie. In a vivid and magical story, The Circle of Reason traces the misadventures of Alu, a young master weaver in a small Bengali village who is falsely accused of terrorism. Alu flees his home, traveling through Bombay to the Persian Gulf to North Africa with a bird-watching policeman in pursuit.
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Ghosh, I was disappointed
- By Gwen Urey on 03-04-13
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Revolusi
- Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
- By: David Van Reybrouck
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after WWII.
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Solid Historical Survey
- By DavidPrestonokwu on 06-05-24
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Medieval Horizons
- Why the Middle Ages Matter
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward, and unchanging time characterized by violence, ignorance, and superstition. By contrast, we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.
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Altered my perception of History
- By IowaGreyhound on 06-25-24
By: Ian Mortimer
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Gun Island
- A Novel
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sagar Arya
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island is a beautifully realized novel that effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
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Loved the story and the narrator
- By Frances on 10-10-19
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Book-Makers
- A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives
- By: Adam Smyth
- Narrated by: Adam Smyth
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Books tell all kinds of stories—romances, tragedies, comedies—but if we learn to read the signs correctly, they can tell us the story of their own making too. The Book-Makers offers a new way into the story of Western culture’s most important object, the book, through dynamic portraits of eighteen individuals who helped to define it.
By: Adam Smyth
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The Shortest History of India
- From the World's Oldest Civilization to Its Largest Democracy—A Retelling for Our Times
- By: John Zubrzycki
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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5,000 years of history—from the Bhagavad Gita to Bollywood—fill this masterful portrait of the world's most populous nation and a rising global power.
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Quick paced coverage of a very great deal of India’s History
- By Caleagle on 03-22-24
By: John Zubrzycki
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Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage
- By: Leilani Basham, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leilani Basham
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
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In the six lectures of Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage, you will meet some of the key figures of Hawaiian history from the 19th and 20th centuries, a tumultuous period in Hawaii’s transformation from a secluded group of independent islands to the 50th US state and a bustling tourist destination. With Leilani Basham of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa as your guide, you’ll be introduced to the political leaders, scholars, activists, and artists who have been integral to Hawaii’s story and the preservation of Hawaiian culture.
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This great!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-25
By: Leilani Basham, and others
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Ashes of Spring
- By: Mieko Kawakami, Hitomi Yoshio - translator
- Narrated by: Sura Siu
- Length: 4 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning Japanese author and poet Mieko Kawakami brings Ashes of Spring, a collection of short stories set in everyday life in Japan just before the pandemic lockdown.
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Ashes of Spring
- By Anonymous User on 04-10-25
By: Mieko Kawakami, and others
Clarifies myths and exposes the real history of the narco-state the British set up in India.
Reader is great but there are many words he pronounces in Indian English that grated on me bcz of their unfamiliar/odd pronunciation. eg, entrepreneur, assuage, etc
Gripping history of opium trade
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a must read
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I would have liked to be able to enjoy the the text but unfortunately, the narrator has chosen to insert himself into the telling in a most irritating way. He seems to feel the need to dramatize and comment on the emotional content of his text, even when - particularly when - there is no need to do so. He slows down and emphasizes certain passages with slow, labored attention to each word in some passages, then speeds up and passes quickly over others, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. Letters from one person to another are particularly painful exercises in bad acting.
It got to the point that I could only listen in short bursts, sometimes no longer than a few minutes before the narration got so infuriating that I would have to stop. Again, a real shame as I generally enjoy the sweep of Ghosh's histories, as for example in his The Nutmeg's Curse.
A very interesting book ruined by bad narration
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Poor performance
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Good pacing and emotive but not overdone at all.
I adored the narrator
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There is a fair amount towards the end that will be hit or miss. I guess if you have read his other books it might be some interesting insight, but was largely wasted on me.
Follow the poppy as it builds and destroys empires
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Interesting Research, Terrible Reading
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Eye opening discussion of worldwide opium trade.
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a distinguished book on a topic generally unexplored
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Amid the dense thickets of details, it's hard to remain interested in the terrible history of opium and how it was used against the poor people who were forced to grow it and the colonized people who were encouraged to destroy themselves using it.
I listened to the book in my car and found myself constantly having to raise and reduce the volume because of the narrator's irritating habit of starting out a sentence loudly, then sinking into a half-whisper part way through. I would have stopped listening if it weren't my book group's most recent selection.
Dull story, poorly narrated
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