1832 Lapie Map of Asia

A fine first edition example of M. Lapie's 1832 map of Asia. In the early 19th century Asia was coming under increasingly imperial european sway. In India full British rule allowed england to attain naval and trade supremacy throughout the eastern hemisphere. Using India as a springboard, the english the traded wool and Indian cotton for Chinese tea and textile. By the 1830s oversaturation of the Chinese market slackened Chinese demand for most British products. To make up for the trade deficit, British merchants introduced Indian opium to China. Addictive and cheap, Opium became Britain's most profitable and important crop in world markets, pouring into China faster than tea poured into Britain. Opium addiction and its attendant social ills reached such catastrophic levels that the Chinese government took action and destroyed British opium in Canton. As this threatened english commercial interests, the crown responded, sparking the Opium Wars of 1839-1842. The superior British forces took complete control of Canton, occupied Shanghai, and blockaded Chinese ports, forcing the Chinese to sign the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. This unequal treaty (the first of many between european powers and China) granted Britain extensive trading rights in China.

The map covers the entire Asian continent from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and from Africa to the Pacific Ocean. It shows the British Isles, europe, Siberia and Russia, Independent Tartary, Turkey, Arabia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, India, Ceylon, Tibet, Chinese empire, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Burma, Siam, Sumatra, Japan and the Asiatic Islands. This map was engraved by Armand Joseph Lallemand as plate no. 33 in the first edition of M. Lapie's important Atlas Universel. This map, like all maps from the Atlas Universel features an embossed stamp from the Lapie firm.