When the largest company the world has ever known, the British East India Company, turned its sights on China and the opium trade, the effects were tremendous. Despite being illegal, opium flooded into China. Published 1888, E. H. Parker presents this history of the Opium War from the Chinese perspective. For many in the west, the Opium War was just a peripheral conflict involving the East India Company, but for the Chinese government it was a defense of sovereignty and the health of its people.
