Every so often a book comes along that illuminates a topic without being a dryly factual history or a loosely constructed popular narrative built around a few key points. John Rainford’s Consuming Pleasures is just such a book. Rainford has researched the rise in both the legal and illegal drug trade across a broad spectrum and produced a fine and timely book that is as informative as it is a pleasure to read. Time and again the book identifies possible root causes of the rise in drug use: prohibition; medical prescription; the rise of the market and pharmaceutical companies as powers in global trade. What shocks is the naked self-interest of great powers: the British in the Chinese Opium Wars of the mid-19th century; the CIA in South East Asia; the Russians in Afghanistan. Rainford is also interested in the rise of tobacco and alcohol consumption and the rise of legal prescription in the late 20th century. The book continually draws these global histories into an Australian context, and this is what makes it truly stand out. I can’t recommend this book highly enough for anyone interested in the drug trade, or anyone interested in the way politics affects history.

Shane Strange is a bookseller at Paperchain Bookstore, Canberra

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