Written in an accessible and lively fashion, Smuggling is an energetic, entertaining and stimulating read. It is highly recommended to all those interested in the connections between smuggling and exploration, contraband and empire and the ways smuggler networks contribute to the global foreign policy of nation states.
History Today
One of the many joys of this splendidly discursive yet academically rigorous book is to find that Kipling got it right in A Smugglers Song.
Country Life
Harvey presents a vast worldwide view of illicit cross-border trade in goods, services, people, and even ideas from about the sixteenth century to the present, showing how smuggling is related to political interests, economic development, scientific advancement, and wars. Basing his book on considerable research, Harvey focuses alternately on different regions such as the Caribbean, where European countries undercut each other then on individuals next, competing monopolistic organizations such as the British and Dutch East Indies companies followed by products such as salt, tobacco, silver, and drugs, as well as attempts to control smuggling . . . This is a rich study . . . Recommended.
Choice
The author presents his work not only as history, but also as a form of geography, assembling an impressively wide range of material dealing with contraband . . . It is difficult to summarise such an extensive and richly-textured study . . . it presents a thought-provoking interpretation of smuggling, especially in its insistence on the significance of its romantic element . . . it contains material that will be of much interest to students of maritime history not least for its probing of the subtle nuances of smuggling practices and culture.
International Journal of Maritime History