The book traces the transformative impact that the opium trade had on India, China, Britain and the United States, with profound long-term consequences for the birth of the modern world, and of contemporary globalism.

Banks, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, died Saturday in upstate New York, his editor, Dan Halpern, told The Associated Press. Banks was being treated for cancer.

Bertelsmann will owe Paramount a USD 200 million break-up fee as a result of the transaction falling apart.

In recent years, entry- and mid-level employees throughout publishing have been increasingly vocal on social media about their unhappiness with wages, workloads and diversity.