{"id":17964,"date":"2026-08-11T11:19:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/?p=17964"},"modified":"2026-08-18T12:36:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:36:56","slug":"bu-historian-benjamin-r-siegels-markets-of-pain-charts-opium-from-a-commodity-in-colonial-india-to-fuel-for-a-drug-crisis-in-modern-day-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/2026\/08\/11\/bu-historian-benjamin-r-siegels-markets-of-pain-charts-opium-from-a-commodity-in-colonial-india-to-fuel-for-a-drug-crisis-in-modern-day-america\/","title":{"rendered":"BU Historian Benjamin R. Siegel\u2019s Markets of Pain Charts Opium from a Commodity in Colonial India to Fuel for a Drug Crisis in Modern-day America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:
Benjamin R. Siegel says the most evocative moment in his research on the opium trade was when he talked with the farmers in central India \u201cwhose entire livelihoods were tied up in the crop.\u201d Photo courtesy of Oxford University Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rare earths so essential to our modern technology have become a new diplomatic weapon\u2014used to leverage influence and wield power, reshape global alliances, and exert economic dominance. For centuries, says Boston University historian\u00a0<\/span>Benjamin R. Siegel<\/a>, opium was used in much the same way.<\/p>\n

In his new book,\u00a0<\/span>Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Oxford University Press, 2026), Siegel \u201cshows how this potent crop reshaped global trade, medicine, and geopolitics,\u201d according to his publisher. Like the rare earth elements used in phone screens and electric car batteries, legal opium\u2014the raw ingredient in many opioid painkillers\u2014was a tool that could be wielded for societal benefit, but that also gave nations an opportunity to control supply chains and bend the world to their advantage…<\/span><\/p>\n

To read more, visit THE BRINK <\/a><\/span>where this article<\/span> originally appeared on April 29, 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rare earths so essential to our modern technology have become a new diplomatic weapon\u2014used to leverage influence and wield power, reshape global alliances, and exert economic dominance. For centuries, says Boston University historian\u00a0Benjamin R. Siegel, opium was used in much the same way. In his new book,\u00a0Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22310,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18004,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17964\/revisions\/18004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/ciss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}