“I know of no other study that gives such a first-hand sense of the western participants' actions and reactions during this period. By letting us look at nineteenth-century China through the eyes of the traders, missionaries, and officials who hovered outside of Canton (and then finally assaulted the 'Celestial Empire'), Fay creates a perfect cadre for a lively, wittily written account of the time. It is narrative history in the grand manner.” — Frederic Wakeman Jr., University of California, Berkeley
“Peter Ward Fay has produced a classic study in The Opium War, 1840–1842, based on a mastery and synthesis of the first-hand Western records of the time and whatever is available in Western languages from the Chinese side.” — John K. Fairbank, New York Times Book Review
“The Opium War, 1840–1842 demonstrates the academic validity and usefulness, as well as the sheer reading pleasure, of narrative historical treatment done properly.” — Queen’s Quarterly
“The work is rich in detail and made richer still by the author’s forceful and robust writing style, which makes it almost possible to see and breathe the opium episode. He paints a historical picture with vivid colors, capturing the imagination of the reader, carrying it with him through the poppy fields of Uttar Pradesh, along the muddy streets of Macao, and into the malaria-infested troop encampments on Chusan.” — American Historical Review
“Panoramic, thoughtful, and brilliantly presented. . . . [Fay’s] special strengths, and they are very considerable, lie in synthesis and presentation, in his flair for handling historical narrative with literary elegance, wit, and a feel for the dramatic. . . . Clearly an excellent piece of work that meets a need and deserves a wide readership.” — Pacific Historical Review
“Fay has pieced together, from an enormous range of firsthand sources, a vivid, microscopically detailed account.” — Historian
