Let’s start from the end and then take a step back. The end is the final phase (at the moment) of a journey and that of a book. The final phase is the one we are living through (terminal of the \u201cAnthropocene or, who knows, transitional towards another epoch), the book is\u201d Smoke and Ashes. A writer’s journey into the hidden stories of opium<\/em> by Amitav Ghosh (Einaudi, 2025, pp. 395, 22 euros, translation by Norman Gobetti and Anna Nadotti, original title Smoke and Ashes<\/em>). The step back takes us to the threshold of the modern age.<\/p>\n\n In the concluding pages of his latest essay-journey (which took him along the routes between India and China, but also between Asia, England and the United States), the internationally renowned writer notes some differences and some similarities between the world history of recent centuries and today. Drug trafficking (which is at the center of the book) is now in the hands of criminal networks and no longer, as we shall see, colonial regimes, even though new technologies like genetically modified super-poppy open up new unthinkable territories for opium plant cultivation and wars, failed states, internal conflicts and climate change favor its cultivation and will make it more difficult to contain opium and its derivatives (p. 307). \u201cThe poppy, after being a driving force of modernity \u2013 warns Ghosh \u2013 will contribute to its decline\u201d (p. 308).<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/educazionesostenibile.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Amitav-Ghosh_Fumo-e-ceneri_cover.jpg\")
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