{"product_id":"opium-consumption-and-experience-in-india-9781680536164","title":"Opium Consumption and Experience in India","description":"\u003cspan\u003e\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOpium Consumption and Experience in India\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e offers a “cultural biography” of opium on the subcontinent. It spans the Raj and India after independence. The book examines the “social lives” of opium in India, beginning as a commodity in the sixteenth century, exploring its social transformation and singularization in the eighteenth century, and chronicling its decline from the mid-nineteenth century to obsolescence and the new “paths and diversions” of our own times. The book attempts to illuminate how opium came to occupy a central place in India’s “cultures of consumption” and also in the socio-economic and political life of a people. How did opium become embedded in a social ethos where it not only served as a social lubricant but soon morphed into a narco-identity for the people of India? The identification of India as a land of “great opium eaters” spawned the propaganda of a “civilizing mission” that ushered in a new era of material exploitation and political domination. As Dr. Kour demonstrates, this had a significant impact on the development and regulation of opium and its use. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"Kawal Deep Kour","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48278000304379,"sku":"9781680536164","price":99.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/9781680536164_b07353f3-7dde-44f0-8241-8c06aab6af07.jpg?v=1772486029","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/opium-consumption-and-experience-in-india-9781680536164","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}