Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies, and the History of the International Drug Trade

This fascinating history of international drug trafficking in the first half of the twentieth century follows the stories of American narcs and gangsters, Japanese spies, Chinese warlords, and soldiers of fortune whose lives revolved around opium. The drug trade centered 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, Europ...