Recovering Histories – Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform–Era China

"In this intimate account of those whose addictions have left them stuck in history's wake, Nicholas Bartlett's portrayal of China's Heroin Generation offers a rare treat: an account of addiction and recovery that takes history seriously. For these men and women, addiction, recovery, and political history are sutured into one's bounds. The result is something quite unique, a vision of China--its past, its present, and its future--through the eye of a needle."--Joshua Burraway, Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia

"An important intervention in the field of addiction studies. With eloquence and rigor, Bartlett reveals the ways drug recovery is at the very center of making sense of a changing world."--Angela Garcia, author of The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande

"Nicholas Bartlett is a gifted ethnographer who is observant, sympathetic, and distant at the same time. By narrating the experiences of the Heroin Generation, he has written the best book I have read about the internal contradictions and disorientations attendant in the early years of the market reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping, whereby a socialist political economy of centralized control gave way to teachings of Adam Smith in barely twenty years."--Dorothy Ko, author of Cinderella Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding