As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.
Historical person
1796–1878
James Matheson was a Scottish merchant who became one of the founders of Jardine, Matheson & Company. Working from Canton and Macau, he made a fortune through trade between India, China and Britain, including the large-scale sale of opium.
He used newspapers and political lobbying to press for stronger British action against Qing restrictions. After returning to Britain, he purchased the Isle of Lewis and served as a member of parliament. James Matheson was born in Sutherland and died in Menton.
Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke places James Matheson within the Canton trading world in which British and Indian fortunes depend heavily on the illegal opium trade and on the merchant networks pressing against Qing restrictions. Flood of Fire carries that commercial conflict into open war, using Matheson and the great China-trade houses to show how private mercantile interests, lobbying and imperial policy became entangled in the First Opium War.
Series
The Ibis Trilogy, written by acclaimed Indian author Amitav Ghosh, is an epic historical fiction series comprising Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011), and Flood of Fire (2015). Set in the 1830s, the sweeping narrative centers on the Ibis—a repurposed slave ship—and traces the devastating geopolitical…
All books in this series
