Published to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of Liberty, this book celebrates the extraordinary range of innovative fabric designs that have been at the forefront of the business and its global reputation for well over a century.
Liberty – an icon of design innovation and luxury – is renowned internationally for fabric designs on silk, wool, cashmere and, most famously, Tana Lawn Cotton™. Gathered here are 150 of the most striking and significant Liberty patterns, ranging from much-loved florals to bold and abstract designs and contemporary collaborations.
Published to mark Liberty’s 150th anniversary, this beautifully produced book places fabrics in the context of the store’s wider design history – from the retailer’s remarkable Tudor-revival building to posters, advertising and branding. It presents the very latest examples of Liberty design alongside prints, drawings and samples from the company’s outstanding archive, telling an inspiring, century-long story of manufacturing quality and design excellence.
Even after eighty years since the end of a conflict that killed thirty-five million people, there remains deeply-felt bitterness and anger about the way the Asia-Pacific War was fought, especially by the Japanese.
The war in the East stretched from Hawaii to India – with Japanese forces attacking Singapore, China and Malaysia, as well as bombing the north coast of Australia. The Allied forces, led by the US, waged an island-by-island counteroffensive that eventually saw the invasion of the Japanese homeland.
Japan has been vilified for the countless examples of its cruelty to civilians and prisoners of war. These criticisms have led to a backlash in Japan, where many deny that the accusations are true.
By going back to the origins of modern Japan, and by using only Japanese accounts, Japan’s War: Hirohito’s Holy War against the West offers a powerful account of the conflict and explains in detail why the Japanese conducted the war in the way that they did.
“It is all heavily researched: the book is replete with very readable footnotes. French’s erudition is as refreshing (and fizzy) as a chilled glass of vinho verde.”
“Buy the book for the fun, but read it for the cultural essays.”
I’ll be zooming with the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong on Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson May 15, 7PM Hong Kong Time (UK Time: 12:00 noon) – if you’re interested click here
Jennifer Haigh’s Rabbit Moon (Little, Brown and Co.)…..
Four years after their bitter divorce, Claire and Aaron Litvak get a phone call no parent is prepared for: their 22-year-old daughter Lindsey, teaching English in China during a college gap year, has been critically injured in a hit and run accident. At a Shanghai hospital they wait at her bedside, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
The accident unearths a deeper fissure in the family: the shocking event that ended the Litvaks’ marriage and turned Lindsey against them. Estranged from her parents, she has confided only in her younger sister, Grace, adopted as an infant from China. As Claire and Aaron struggle to get their bearings in bustling, cosmopolitan Shanghai, the newly prosperous “miracle city,” they face troubling questions about Lindsey’s life there, in which nothing is quite as it seems.
For some reason I had never noticed this stone monument before – it is rather unprepossessing though interesting. It reads:
This stone was laid by the Duke of Connaught K.G.K.T. K.P. & c. In the 2nd April 1890. In Commemoration of the commencement of the Praya reclamation works. Sir C. William Des Voeux K.C.M.G. Governor.
Except apparently the stone was moved to its current location in 1983 so the Praya was not quite at this point.
Analyzes an enigmatic figure at the peak of his influence in China, showing how his improvisational approach to political problems brought remarkable successes, but also ultimate defeat.
From 1935 to 1950, Chiang Kai-shek steered China’s development as a nation and shaped global history, yet he remains an enigmatic figure remembered primarily for losing a brutal civil war. A reinterpretation is overdue.
Chiang Kai-shek’s Critical Years sheds new light on his call for mobilization against Japan in 1937 and his relations with US representatives during the war, his efforts first to accommodate and then to defeat the Chinese Communist Party, and his ability to hold on to the presidency of the Republic of China after 1949, despite disastrous military failure. This examination of Chiang’s daily planning and reflection on events reveals astute improvisation that ensured political survival despite setbacks and weaknesses. The sharpened sense of Chiang’s agency that emerges from this important study provides an invaluable foundation for further analysis of the military and political institutional structures he helped build.
