In China, both opium and alcohol were used for centuries in the<br>pursuit of health and leisure while simultaneously linked to personal<br>and social decline. The impact of these substances is undeniable, and<br>the role they have played in Chinese social, cultural, and economic<br>history is extremely complex.<br><br>In <i>Intoxicating Manchuria,</i> Norman Smith reveals how huge<br>intoxicant industries were altered by warlord rule, Japanese<br>occupation, and war. Powering the spread of alcohol and<br>opium - initially heralded as markers of class or modernity<br>and whose use was well documented - these industries<br>flourished throughout the early twentieth century even as a vigorous<br>anti-intoxicant movement raged.<br><br>This book provides a detailed analysis of the media's positive<br>and negative portrayals of alcohol in the 1930s and 40s, which includes<br>the advertising industry's promotion of alcohol and its<br>subsequent calls for prohibition. While tracing the history of opium<br>and alcohol consumption in China and the business of intoxicant<br>production in Manchuria, Smith highlights the efforts of<br>anti-intoxicant activists, scientists, bureaucrats, and writers to<br>raise awareness of the dangers of intoxicants. This is the first<br>English-language book-length study to focus on alcohol use in modern<br>China and the first dealing with intoxicant restriction in the region.<b>Norman Smith</b> is an associate professor in the<br>History Department of the University of Guelph. He is the author of<br><i>Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese<br>Occupation</i> and co-editor of <i>Beyond Suffering: Recounting War<br>in Modern China.</i>