Hong Kong and British Culture, 1945-97

Bibliographic Data

ID23548014
AuthorsMark Hampton
Year2015
Pages248
Publication date2015-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueHong Kong and British culture, 1945-97 (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherManchester University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.7228/manchester/9780719099236.001.0001
OpenAlexW4230389639
ISBN9780719099236
Open LibraryOL27510963M
LanguageEN
Citations received4

This book examines the place of Hong Kong in the British imagination between the end of World War II and the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997. It argues that Hong Kong has received far less attention from British imperial and cultural historians than its importance would warrant. It argues that Hong Kong was a site within which competing yet complementary visions of Britishness could be imagined—for example, the British penchant for trade and good government, and their role as agents of modernization. At the centre of these articulations of Britishness was the idea of Hong Kong as a “barren rock” that British administration had transformed into one of the world’s great cities—and the danger of its destruction by the impending “handover” to communist China in 1997. The book moves freely between the activities of Britons in Hong Kong and portrayals of Hong Kong within domestic British discourse. It uses such printed primary sources as newspapers, memoirs, novels, political pamphlets, and academic texts, and archival material located in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the United States, and Australia, including government documents, regimental collections, and personal papers.

Political science · History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · china · foreign relations · Great britain · hong kong · International Relations · Relations

Tools

Open DOILibgen