Description
Book SynopsisA timely, well-researched, and vibrant new history of Hong Kong that reveals the untold stories of the diverse peoples who have made it a multicultural world metropolis-and whose freedoms are endangered today.
Hong Kong has always been many cities to many people: a seaport, a gateway to an empire, a place where fortunes can be dramatically made or lost, a place to disappear and reinvent oneself, and a mixing pot of diverse populations from literally everywhere around the globe. A British Crown Colony for 155 years, Hong Kong is now ruled by the Chinese Communist Party who continues to threaten its democracy and put its rich legacy at risk. Here, renowned journalist Vaudine England delves into Hong Kong''s complex history and its people-diverse, multi-cultural, cosmopolitan-who have made this one-time fishing village into the world port city it is today.
Rather than a traditional history describing a town led by British Governors or a mere offshoot of a collapsin
Trade Review
As a history of Hongkong, not just as a British colony, or an exotic Chinese enclave, but as a cosmopolitan city of many creeds and races, Asian and European, Vaudine England's book is unsurpassed. Her take on the so-called Eurasians, who have played such a large part in Hongkong's history, is fresh and essential to a better understanding of this unique place -- Ian Buruma
At last: a lively and carefully researched page turner about the individuals and social forces that have made Hong Kong the dynamic (and quirky) place it is -- Adi Ignatius, former Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief in Beijing
Vivid, atmospheric, packed with brilliant story-telling, Vaudine England brings to life the boiling pot of race, culture and ambition that made Hong Kong one of the world's great cities. Within its compelling read, Fortune's Bazaar boldly explodes the myth that Hong Kong is 'just another Chinese city.' Not at all, England gives us the story of the visionary, deal-making, itinerant Eurasian elite who created this unique, international place that is Hong Kong -- Humphrey Hawksley, former BBC Beijing, Hong Kong and Asia Correspondent
If you love Hong Kong and have lost her, as have I, Vaudine England's marvellous account of the "in-between people," who made it the remarkable place it was, will fill you with wonder, understanding and a sadness for a place - and an idea - that no longer exists
-- Richard Hornik, former TIME bureau chief in Beijing and Hong Kong
In
Fortune's Bazaar, Vaudine England rejects a tale-of-two-cities approach to the history of Hong Kong's colonization and this is what makes it so illuminating... [
Fortune's Bazaar] offers lively, confounding and sometimes even inspiring stories about Eurasians and others, show[ing] that cities are constructed not from zero-sum games and political theory, but from generations of human interactions that defy us-and-them formulas * Thomas Dyja, New York Times Book Review *
To call a history 'rollicking' may indicate that it isn't serious, but
Fortune's Bazaar is both.
Vaudine England's well-written take on the historical record is likely to delight anyone who loves Hong Kong * Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books *
In
Fortune's Bazaar, Vaudine England examines [Hong Kongers], these 'in-between people,' as she calls them, and their often overlooked role in the development of Hong Kong into a cosmopolitan, world-class city. [With] impressive research,
Fortune's Bazaar is less a straightforward narrative than a history told through the stories of Eurasians and other mixed-culture residents.
The reader will be rewarded with an enhanced understanding of what it means to be a Hong Konger * Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal *
A vivid, entertaining guide, rich in anecdote and understanding for an early globalised world that
has gone
* Michael Sheridan, Sunday Times *
