'An informative, scholarly and dispassionately fascinating book… Narcotic Culture teases out the complex relationship between tolerance and suppression. It needs to be read far outside the community of Sinologists whence it has emanated.' - Justin Wintle, The Independent

'This is a terrific book. It is an important correction to the China field's, and almost everyone else's, interpretation of opium's impact on Chinese society. The book is clearly written as well as insightful, and it offers a profound conclusion.' - William Jankowiak, The Historian

'In the burgeoning sub-field of narcotic history in China, Narcotic Culture stands out as a revision of the revisionist literature. Most scholars now concur that the nature and extent of China's narcotic "problem" has been grossly exaggerated over time, and recent scholarship has reinterpreted opiates as key components of social, economic and political developments in the late Qing and Republican eras. But Narcotic Culture goes well beyond this reassessment in an interpretation that relies on a wide range of archival and other primary sources, as well as a methodology that successfully blends history and anthropology.' - Joyce Madancy, China Quarterly

'The authors provide a comprehensive and powerful account of drug consumption in China.' - Rana Mitter, History Today

'This is an excellent example of revisionist cultural history, full of colorful detail.' – James Jamieson, Mankind Quarterly

' This is a brave and powerful book… ground-breaking, and indeed astonishing.' - Bradley Winterton, Taipei Times

'In a stunning revisionist history of Chinese opium use and the efforts to eradicate it, Dikötter and colleagues systematically debunk not only the historiography of drugs in China but also the founding myths of drug prohibition... Narcotic Culture is an important contribution to the emerging true history of drugs and drug prohibition and belongs on the bookshelf of every student of the topic.' - Drug War Chronicle

This book is impressive for its sheer breadth and depth of research… minutely argued… Narcotic Culture is an important and timely challenge to a myth that remains one of the cornerstones of current international drug policy.' – Caroline Clark, Health and Hygiene

'Narcotic Culture provides a critical history of opium, based on a wide range of published and archival sources, and informed by the latest research on the social and cultural history of drugs… rich and highly readable.' - Florence Bretelle-Establet, China Perspectives

'Narcotic Culture is a comprehensive, meticulously detailed social history of the production and consumption of psychoactive substances - i.e. "drugs" - in China... Dikötter and his colleagues wield a devastating arsenal of facts against the sturdy myth of China as a victim of the imperialist opium trade.' - Richard Madson, China Review

'Striking... unflinching... the moralism and sloppy argument that pervades opium history needed this powerful challenge, and for the most part Narcotic Culture simply brings China up to date with the sophisticated social and cultural histories that have successfully altered the way scholars think of opiates in the West.' - Paul Gootenberg, Qualitative Sociology