In Markets of Pain, BU historian Siegel charts how a legal trade was managed and manipulated as a weapon of state power. Credit: Oxford University Press

The rare earths so essential to our modern technology have become a new diplomatic weapon—used to leverage influence and wield power, reshape global alliances, and exert economic dominance. For centuries, says Boston University historian Benjamin R. Siegel, opium was used in much the same way.

In his new book, Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers (Oxford University Press, 2026), Siegel "shows how this potent crop reshaped global trade, medicine, and geopolitics," according to his publisher.…