| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 228 words from this article are provided below; about 498 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssinen. Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies, and the History of the International Drug Trade. (State and Society in East Asia.) Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. 1998. Pp. xx, 313. $29.95.

Throughout the twentieth century, politicians and bureaucrats involved in the struggle to stamp out drug trafficking have often portrayed their endeavors as a crusade against an international conspiracy. Chinese activists in the early part of the century couched anti-opium campaigns in nationalistic rhetoric, accusing the Western powers (and later Japan) of pursuing their imperial designs in China by deliberately fostering drug abuse in order to weaken the will of the Chinese people. During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, Harry Anslinger, the ambitious bureaucrat who headed the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, advanced his organization's goals by accusing China of being the world's major supplier of illicit drugs, thus linking drugs with the international communist conspiracy. As recently as the middle of the present decade, prominent leaders of the African-American community became convinced that the Central Intelligence Agency had been involved in a plot to distribute crack cocaine in inner cities as a means to fund Contra operations in Nicaragua. Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssinen argue that the international drug trade is in fact an infinitely more complex phenomenon that defies such simplistic explanations. . . .

There are about 498 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.