The story of two women from worlds that could not seem farther apart—imperial China and the American Midwest—who found common ground before and after one of the greatest clashes between East and West, the fifty-five-day siege of the Beijing foreign legations known as the Boxer Uprising. Using diaries, letters and untapped sources, The Empress and Mrs. Conger traces the parallel lives of the Empress Dowager Cixi and American diplomat’s wife Sarah Pike Conger, which converged to alter their perspectives of each other and each other’s worlds.

Enemies of Civilization is a work of comparative history and cultural consciousness that discusses how “others” were perceived in three ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. Each civilization was the dominant culture in its part of the world, and each developed a mind-set that regarded itself as culturally superior to its neighbors. Mu-chou Poo compares these societies’ attitudes toward other cultures and finds differences and similarities that reveal the self-perceptions of each society. Notably, this work shows that in contrast to modern racism based on biophysical features, such prejudice did not exist in these ancient societies. It was culture rather than biophysical nature that was the most important criterion for distinguishing us from them. By examining how societies conceive their prejudices, this book breaks new ground in the study of ancient history and opens new ways to look at human society, both ancient and modern.

Insurance is one of Hong Kong's oldest industries. In the nineteenth century the lucrative trade between China and Europe carried many risks — piracy, warfare, fire, loss of goods, and other mishaps. Dozens of different insurance firms — some home-grown, others imported — established themselves in the colony to protect ships and their cargoes. With the diversification of Hong Kong’s economy into manufacturing and services, and the development of life and health insurance policies, Hong Kong became a global centre of insurance. The industry continues to transform itself today through changing practices and new lines of business. This is the first comprehensive history of Hong Kong’s insurance industry, and argues its central importance in the economy. Typhoons, shipwrecks, fires, wars, political turbulence and unexpected events of all kinds provide a dramatic background to a fascinating survey. The book is richly illustrated with photographs and documents.

Translations of two late-19th-century Chinese scrolls featuring popular religious literature in alternating verse and prose designed to both entertain and instruct. Graphic portrayals of the underworld; dramatization of popular Buddhist beliefs about death, salvation, and rebirth; and frank discussions of the demands of filial piety as well as women's perceived responsibility for sin will intrigue a contemporary audience.

On 25 December 1941, the day of Hong Kong’s surrender to the Japanese, Admiral Chan Chak—the Chinese government’s chief agent in Hong Kong—and more than 60

Praise for the first edition:

"... in the great tradition of Orwell and Solzhenitsyn; its true subject is the survival -- and sometimes the defeat -- of the human spirit in its lonely quest for integrity." -- Time

"The almost childlike directness of Chen's tales... is captured in the very lightly revised translations of this new edition... Highly recommended." -- Choice

A classic of modern world literature, this collection of stories provides a vivid and poignant eyewitness view of everyday life in China during the Cultural Revolution. For this edition, Howard Goldblatt has thoroughly revised the text and updated it to Pinyin romanization. In a new introduction, Perry Link reflects on the book's significance in the post-Tiananmen era. Twenty-five years after its first publication, The Execution of Mayor Yin has lost none of its power to move the reader, and remains unmatched as a document of the period.

This is a book for everyone with an interest in the recent history of Hong Kong and in an exceptional man who played a major part in that history as he ploughed a distinctive and individual, and sometimes controversial, path from District Officer to Acting Governor to Hong Kong Affairs Advisor.

A forgotten figure in the struggle for equal rights, Wong Chin Foo (1847-1898) was the first to use the term “Chinese American” and defend his compatriots against malicious scapegoating. He urged Chinese residents to embrace Americanization to secure better treatment and political protection. A trail­blazer and born showman who proclaimed himself China’s first Confucian missionary to the United States, Foo established America’s first association of Chinese voters and testified before Congress to repeal laws denying Chinese Americans citizenship. He challenged Americans to live up to the principles they espoused yet failed to follow. This evocative biography is the first book-length account of the life of one of America’s most famous Chinese residents and an early champion for racial equality.

This book follows on from the mapping and recording of the about 10,000 graves that make up the Hong Kong Cemetery for a database which will be held in the archives of the Hong Kong Memory Project and the Royal Asiatic Society among other places. The silent tombs and elegantly carved inscriptions dating from 1842 up to the present day aroused curiosity in the author about who these long-buried people were and how they lived their lives. Lim has teased out from many sources the answers to these questions. This small, alien and rather disparate band of adventurers came from a number of far distant countries to live and work in the tiny and insignificant British foothold of Hong Kong on the edge of a huge and little understood empire. The book tries to show their relationships with each other and with their Chinese neighbours on the island. It has attempted to breathe life into the stories behind the gravestones so that the Hong Kong Cemetery can be viewed as a cradle of history as well as a final resting place for the dead.

The book covers several decades of Hong Kong's recent past, from the time James Hayes joined the Administrative Grade of the Hong Kong Civil Service in the 1950s to his retirement in the 1980s, thirty-two years later.