- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Constable (Sep 12 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1841195693
- ISBN-13: 978-1841195698
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.5 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 458 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,326,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Moxham (The Great Hedge of India) tells the story of how Britain's thirst for tea meshed with its thirst for empire, with devastating repercussions throughout the world. He points out that after tea first came to England from China in the 1700s, it was in great demand but heavily taxed, which led to an increase in smuggling and eventually played a role in England's loss of the American colonies. He then shows that as tea consumption rose, the East India Company paid for Chinese tea with Indian opium, with consequences that resonate in China to the present day. Then, in the mid-1880s, the East India Company began growing tea in India, which culminated in the importation of slave labor from China, Malaya and Bengal. Flogging, low wages, inadequate food, substandard housing and nonexistent medical care contributed to miserable conditions for these workers. Once tea workers started to unionize and nationalism threatened British domination of the tea industry in India, the British turned to Africa. Moxham concludes his provocative book with a description of the year he spent in 1960 as assistant manager on a tea estate in Nyasaland (now Malawi), where the British planters were still arrogantly confident of their racial superiority and fiercely opposed to Nyasaland's growing independence movement. Moxham's searing history of the commodity that has for centuries been so important for England's economy provides plenty of food for thought to go with that next cup of tea. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Readers won't find the secret to brewing the perfect cup here. Instead, Moxham explains how a nation's longing for the seemingly innocuous pleasures of a hot cup of tea drew it to commit unspeakable horrors. England took up the tea-drinking habit later than neighboring countries, but no nation took to its tea as did Britain. At first a costly luxury, tea became common in Britain when its traders successfully imported the leaf in vast quantities through commercial dominance of the sea. As trade began, Britain had little of interest to the Chinese, but soon merchants discovered a wildly profitable exchange of British silver for Indian opium for Chinese tea. Chinese efforts to discourage opium smoking led to wars that destabilized the ancient empire, setting the stage for Western dominance. Eventually, Britain likewise exploited India, Ceylon, and Africa to satisfy Britain's lust for tea. A frightening tale, well and relevantly told in a manner that may invite comparison with America's present appetite for oil. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
guaranteed to blow your mind,
By
This review is from: Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (Paperback)
Who knew tea was once illegal? Who knew tea was really the catalyst behind the British-China opium wars? You'll also learn why Darjeeling beats Assam teas any day of the week and why Lipton no longer holds sway in the country it started in.These and many more curious bits of history leak out in Moxham's captivating book on the history of tea. The text is breezy yet has great depth. The fact Moxham was involved with a tea plantation in Africa helps gives him a great perspective but it never intrudes or really prejudices the tale. The last chapter is the only truly autobiographical of the lot and does sort of seem tossed in at the end--enjoyable but doesn't truly fit in with the rest.
4.0 out of 5 stars
5 stars as narrative history, 4 for lack of closure,
By
This review is from: Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (Hardcover)
this is a fascinating microhistory of tea, bookended with an unfortunately underdeveloped personal narrative. The historical content is superb and both detailed and aware of world events of the time, giving insights into trade agreements as well as growing conditions. Moxham's own year overseeing a tea plantation in Africa is embarrasingly brief in comparison, and ends the book so abruptly I searched beyond the glossary, hoping for at least an epilogue to explain the paucity. It's among some of the very good books on the historical lure of caffeinated products, and well worth picking up, provided you don't expect the boy's own adventure Moxham's opening pages seem to indicate
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Highly Enjoyable Read,
By Rick Giombetti (Seattle) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire (Hardcover)
Rox Moxham devotes the introduction and last chapter of his highly enjoyable new book Tea: Addiction, Exploitation, and Empire to his 5 year stint as a manager of a 500 acre and 1,000-plus workforce tea estate in Colonial Malawi during the waning years of the British Empire in the 1960's. Tea is above all a history of the imperial exploitation of this commodity by the British Empire. Tea was known more as a medicine than a beverage upon its introduction from China to Europe and America in the 17th century. What originally was a heavily taxed exotic import from the Far East, made only affordable to the wealthy, would gradually come to be known as the official beverage of the British nation. Moxham traces the development of the tea industry from its beginnings in ancient China to the 19th century British humiliation of the Chinese in the Opium Wars, wars fought in part to finance tea imports by growing opium.Britain also decided during the 19th century to crop tea within its own empire, starting in India, then in Sri Lanka and finally Africa. No story of the exploitation of such an important commodity by the Empire would be complete without an overview of the exploitation of the intensive labor needed to crop and manufacture tea. Imported Asian laborers, a.k.a. "Coolies," would be get sent to the tea plantations, mostly under conditions of coercion, in the thousands over the decades. These labors usually died in the thousands as well, as they suffered under appalling conditions. Don't think the days of bad labor conditions for tea plantation workers are in the past either. As Moxham points out, today tea plantation workers are still low wage workers whose lot is in bad need of improvement. This book is a frank look at the tea industry at a time when the purported medicinal benefits of the product are once again being used in its marketing.
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