| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws in the Nineteenth-Century American West. By Diana L. Ahmad. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2007. xiii + 132 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.)

The claim of "defending American culture and social value" has potently served as a rally cry for nativists in many anti-immigrant campaigns. Alleged immoral activities or foreign customs of ethnic groups often provide the society with a good excuse for denying their equal status and opportunities. Concealing its racist agenda in the rhetoric of moral uplifting and public health, the nineteenth-century opium debate in the West successfully fueled Sinophobic propaganda for Chinese exclusion. This, America's first war on drugs, achieved both political and legal victories.

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