All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
Wallis Simpson (then Spencer) loved horse racing – she went to the autumn races in Shanghai 1924, the spring races at Paomachang in Peking in 1925 and finally squeezed in some late spring/summer meetings back in Shanghai….. more on those courses, clubs, the runners & riders, the parties and who she was with in Her Lotus Year…
If you’re in Hong Kong…..
Jack Weatherford’s Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China (Bloomsbury)…
Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea? Based on ten years of research and a lifetime of immersion in Mongol culture and tradition, Emperor of the Seas brings this little-known story vibrantly to life.
Kublai Khan is one of history’s most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world’s largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.
By the end of his reign, the Chinese were building and supplying remarkable ships to transport men, grain, and weapons over vast distances, of a size and dexterity that would be inconceivable in Europe for hundreds of years. Khan had come to a brilliant realization: control the sea, and you control everything.
A master storyteller with an unparalleled grasp of Mongol sources, Jack Weatherford shows how Chinese naval hegemony changed the world forever – revolutionizing world commerce and transforming tastes as far away as England and France.
City of Devils waiting for Manhattan Christmas shoppers at Strand books down there on Broadway…..
Chinese male idols continue to be incredible economic engines- my final China-Britain Business Council Focus magazine author Q&A of the year with Amanda Sikarskie, one of the authors (along with Peng Liu & Lan Lan) of Male Idols & Branding in Chinese Luxury (Bloomsbury)….click here…
A lovely copy of Peking-Paris im Automobile by Italian journalist Luigi Barzini & Prince Scipione Borghese (who owned the car!) about their adventures on the Peking-Paris car race of 1907 (for more see Kassia St Clair’s Race to the Future, John Murray, 2023)
The Aitken-Alexander Agency (that’s my agents) 2024 hit list…
Marvellous painting of a junk at full sail, Anglo-Chinese School, probably late 19th century, artist unknown…
