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Smuggling: Contraband and Corruption in World History. By ALAN L. KARRAS. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009. 224 pp. $34.95 (cloth and e-book).
This book is a welcome addition to the literature on smuggling. The title is a little deceiving, since Karras does not take us for a ride through world history but deals primarily with smuggling in the Caribbean in the second half of the eighteenth century and China in the early nineteenth century. Yet in spite of this narrow evidentiary base, he develops important arguments about the nature and causes of smuggling that are valid for other times and places.
Karras remarks that smuggling was usually a peaceful affair, unlike piracy, which involved the threat or use of violence. The conflation between smugglers and pirates, Karras argues, accounts for the perception of smugglers as violent people. Another difference, he notes, is that the social backgrounds of the two groups did not necessarily coincide. Atlantic pirates were working-class men on the edge of society, while smugglers came from all walks of life. Karras goes on to explain that whereas individuals suffer from piracy, smugglers do not exploit identifiable persons but rather hurt the national state or the empire. Here is a point that Karras belabors. Smuggling is theft (p. 134). It "is a clear violation of trade, tax, and /or revenue laws" (p. 49). Individuals who involved themselves in smuggling activities enfeebled a state that they themselves needed for protection (p. 65). They...