I want to second Mark's view. Parssinen and co-author Kathryn Meyer's Webs of Smoke is an excellent book, and has implications for trafficking in drugs other than narcotics. The relationship between failed states and drug trafficking, which is central to the book, is highly relevant to what's going on in Colombia and Afghanistan now, even thought Meyer and Parssinen pretty much conclude their narrative with the Chinese Revolution.

David Courtwright   

-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mark Haller
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 1:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: teaching alcohol and drugs history


With regard to a course on world history of alcohol and drugs, Terry
Parssinen co-authored a book that deals with the world opium trafficking in
the first half of the 20th century.  It is well worth looking at as a
possible assignment.

                                    Mark Haller

David Fahey wrote:

> May I ask for help as I explore the possibility of teaching (for
> undergraduates) a course on alcohol and drugs in world history?
> Suggestions re paperbacks?  Suggestions for excerpts from books and
> articles?  If anybody has a related syllabus for similar or more
> focused courses, I would be grateful to see it.  To the best of my
> knowledge, the only broad survey is Courtwright's Forces of Habit which
> is available in paperback.  I have not read Escohotado's A Brief
> History of Drugs, also available in paperback. (Gina Hames is a writing
> a global history of alcohol, but presumably it won't be available for
> some time.)  At my university students have electronic access to the
> ABC-Clio encyclopedia on the modern history of alcohol and temperance.
> We also have what is called electronic reserve, password-protected
> postings of articles and no more than 10% of copyrighted books.