I am hyperly excited this book was released, I read the first book of the Ibis Trilogy, "Sea of Poppies", and was hypnotized by the author's passion for the complex and shared history of South and East Asia with England (opium trade, colonization, race/language relationships, and its subsequent history of migration of Indians, Chinese, and Africans to the Caribbean in the 1800s.) Amitav Ghosh admires cultures and history, being an anthropologist-turned- fiction writer, its understandable. He also admires the sea and the majestic trading ships of the time, he makes you live the long and dangerous voyages that were made in the Atlantic and the Pacific along with people who came from random parts of the globe to work the ships. It was like unplanned affirmative action. I wish more people would read his book, and someone could make a movie out of it lol That way I would find more people to talk to about it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/11/river-smoke-amitav-ghosh-review
