Surprisingly little has been written about the complicated relationship between opium and China and its people. Opium, State, and Society goes a long way toward illuminating this relationship in the Republican period, when all levels of Chinese society--from peasants to school teachers, merchants, warlords, and ministers of finance--were physically or economically dependent on the drug.

The centerpiece of this study is an investigation of the symbiotic relationship that evolved between opium and the Guomindang's rise to power in the years 1924-1937. Despite attempts to find other...