Penguin’s China and World War One Series Launched – Besieged Tsingtao and the Coolie Corps Come to Europe

Penguin China have commissioned a bunch of writers to think about the issues involving China and the First World War. In this centenary year there’s bound to be a flood of books, TV, movies on WW1 but China’s involvement in the conflict and the effects of that war on the fledgling republic and its people are generally poorly covered. So a series that adds something different to perspectives on both the Great War and China’s history. All are available as e-books with paperbacks available in Asia and Australia.

There’s a whole bunch of great authors involved including Jonathan Fenby, Mark O’Neill, Anne Witchard, Frances Wood, Robert Bickers and myself (my own contribution on China at the Paris Peace Conference and the ramifications of China’s betrayal by the Great Powers at Versailles is out in the spring).

The series is now launched with Jonathan Fenby’s The Siege of Tsingtao, the only battle of WW1 to be fought in East Asia with the Japanese seizure of the German possessions in Shantung (Shandong). Jonathan will taking about the book and the Siege at the Beijing International Literary Festival on the 14th March (click here)

Also up and out now is Mark O’Neill’s The Chinese Labour Corps, the story of the thousands of Chinese men recruited by the British and French to provide logistical support and clean the battlefields in Europe. It’s a fascinating story and little known outside China history buffs (I’ve blogged on it here, here and here).

Mark will also be speaking at the Beijing festival (March 9th) on China and WW1 with Paul Ham (author of 1913: The Eve of War) and Steven Schwankert (author of Poseidon: China’s Secret Salvage of Britain’s Lost Submarine)