The Collision of Two Civilisations
The British Expedition to China in 1792-4
Description:... British wanted tea, porcelain, and silk, but had little to offer the Chinese in return, except one shameful commodity - Indian opium. "Everyone thought of it," Peyrefitte remarks, "but no one spoke of it." Making use of extraordinary source materials - including, on the British side, the wonderfully candid diary of twelve-year-old Thomas Staunton, son of Macartney's aide, and the only person in the entire English fleet who had taught himself Chinese, and, on the Chinese.
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