Empires of Vice - (Histories of Economic Life) by Diana S Kim

Empires of Vice is a groundbreaking book that uncovers the hidden history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast Asia.

Drawing on extensive archival evidence across Southeast Asia and Europe, Diana Kim reveals how seemingly weak bureaucratic officials played a pivotal role in delegitimizing the taxing of opium, making major anti-opium reforms possible.

This book challenges conventional wisdom about opium prohibition, offering a more complex story deep within the colonial bureaucracy.

Empires of Vice sheds light on the inner life of colonial governance and illuminates how European rulers reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance, shaping Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the punitive state.

With its original account of the shift towards opium prohibition across colonial South East Asia, Empires of Vice is an important contribution to the historiography of drug regulation, the comparative history of empire, and the development of state making and governance in Southeast Asia.