Tea War

Andrew B. Liu is assistant professor of history at Villanova University, where his research focuses on China, transnational Asia, and the history of capitalism.

“Mr Liu ranges widely in his carefully researched and well-crafted narrative. He is most concerned with the conduct and impact of the tea trade, but punctuates the story of profit and exploitation with fascinating cultural titbits.”—The Economist“An impressive and insightful examination of the tea production competition between China and India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Tea War is an important assessment of the significance of global trade and production via a refreshing pivot to the emerging industrial capitalist economies of China and Asia.”—Troy Bickham, Cultural and Social HistoryWinner of the 2022 Ralph Gomory Prize, sponsored by the Business History ConferenceLonglisted for the International Convention of Asia Scholars’ Prize for the Best Book in the Humanities, sponsored by the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)“Tea War is not only a detailed comparative history of the transformation of tea production in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it also intervenes in larger debates about the nature of capitalism, global modernity, and global history.”— Alexander F. Day, Occidental College“In Tea War, Andy Liu grapples with the question of how to write the history of capitalism beyond the North Atlantic. His comparative study of two Asian frontier regions presses us to rethink the conventional signposts around which the history of capitalism has conventionally been written. He shows how careful empirical inquiry and social theory can inform each other in innovative and exciting ways.”—Andrew Sartori, New York University“Andy Liu’s Tea War opens worlds by closing in on the processes of tea production in nineteenth-century India and China. Liu’s contentions about capitalism provoke; his meticulous empirical excavations persuade.”—Rebecca E. Karl, New York University