Intoxicating Manchuria ─ Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China's Northeast

In China, both opium and alcohol were used for centuries in the
pursuit of health and leisure while simultaneously linked to personal
and social decline. The impact of these substances is undeniable, and
the role they have played in Chinese social, cultural, and economic
history is extremely complex.

In Intoxicating Manchuria, Norman Smith reveals how huge
intoxicant industries were altered by warlord rule, Japanese
occupation, and war. Powering the spread of alcohol and
opium - initially heralded as markers of class or modernity
and whose use was well documented - these industries
flourished throughout the early twentieth century even as a vigorous
anti-intoxicant movement raged.

This book provides a detailed analysis of the media's positive
and negative portrayals of alcohol in the 1930s and 40s, which includes
the advertising industry's promotion of alcohol and its
subsequent calls for prohibition. While tracing the history of opium
and alcohol consumption in China and the business of intoxicant
production in Manchuria, Smith highlights the efforts of
anti-intoxicant activists, scientists, bureaucrats, and writers to
raise awareness of the dangers of intoxicants. This is the first
English-language book-length study to focus on alcohol use in modern
China and the first dealing with intoxicant restriction in the region.Norman Smith is an associate professor in the
History Department of the University of Guelph. He is the author of
Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese
Occupation and co-editor of Beyond Suffering: Recounting War
in Modern China.

Norman Smith is an associate professor in theHistory Department of the University of Guelph. He is the author of Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the JapaneseOccupation and co-editor of Beyond Suffering: Recounting Warin Modern China.