Strangers in the Land tells the story of a people who, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, migrated by the tens of thousands to a distant land they called Gum Shan–Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. A prolonged economic downturn that idled legions of white workingmen helped create the conditions for what came next: a series of progressively more onerous federal laws aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country, marking the first time the United States barred a people based on their race. In a captivating debut, Michael Luo follows the Chinese from these early years to modern times, as they persisted in the face of bigotry and persecution, revealing anew the complications of our multiracial democracy.
Luo writes of early victims of anti-Asian violence, like Gene Tong, a Los Angeles herbalist who was dragged from his apartment and hanged by a mob during one of the worst mass lynchings in the country’s history; of demagogues like Denis Kearney, a sandlot orator who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement in the late-1870s; of the pioneering activist Wong Chin Foo and other leaders of the Chinese community, who pressed their new homeland to live up to its stated ideals. At the book’s heart is a shameful chapter of American history: the brutal driving out of Chinese residents from towns across the American West. The Chinese became the country’s first undocumented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.
In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as “strangers in the land.” Only in 1965 did America’s gates swing open to people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writer’s style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.
While she was in Peking from December 1924 to July 1925 Wallis, like all Americans, regularly encountered the Fourth Marines who undertook Legation Quarter guard duties – here in winter uniform.
In 1973 twenty-five young women drowned in a ferry accident on their way to work in factories in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone. Their remains were recovered and interred collectively in what came to be called the Twenty-five Maiden Ladies Tomb. Without a husband’s ancestral hall where they would have been laid to rest, the spirits of these unmarried women were considered homeless and possibly vengeful, and so the Maiden Ladies Tomb was viewed as a place to be avoided—especially by young men traveling alone, fearful of encountering a female ghost searching for a husband. Over the years, numerous plans were made to revamp the tomb site; finally, in 2008, at the urging of local feminist communities, the Kaohsiung City government renovated the Twenty-five Maiden Ladies Tomb and renamed it the Memorial Park for Women Laborers.
Haunted Modernities interrogates the nature of shared expressions of history, sentiments, and memory as it investigates the role of these women and other female workers in the shifting public narrative during and after the Maiden Ladies Tomb renovation. By exploring the ways in which the deceased young women were perceived to “haunt” the living and the diverse renovations recommended, the book illuminates how women workers in Taiwan have been conceptualized in the last several decades. In their proposals to renovate the tomb, the interested parties forged specific accounts of history, transforming the collective burial site according to varying definitions of “heritage” as Taiwan shifted to a postindustrial economy, where factory jobs were no longer the main source of employment. Their plans engaged with acts of remembering—communal and individual—to create new ways of understanding the present. The Twenty-five Maiden Ladies Tomb as a heritage site elucidates how “history” and “memory” are not simply about the past but part of a forward-looking process that emerges from the social, political, and economic needs of the present, legitimized and validated through its associations with the past.
Sex, violence, suicide: love triangle scandal in 1920s Beijing that stained Italy’s reputation in China. A diplomatic love triangle ignited an international incident that embarrassed not just the Italian nobility but the country as a whole – and the story of the Mad Marchesa of Peking and her lovers…. I wrote the story some time back for the South China Morning Post weekend magazine (here), now it’s a four part audio for Hong Kong’s RTHK3 and a podcast…. more details to follow – the programmes will be broadcast and uploaded this June….
The Great Wall of China – stretching from the arid rises of Gansu province to the cold waters of the Bohai Sea – remains an enduring symbol of Chinese might. And yet for all its grandeur, the Wall also marks a vulnerability: an ever-present reminder of old battlelines and never-ending tension with China’s northern neighbours.
Travelling by sacred mountains and along forgotten trade routes, John Man journeys through China and Mongolia, tracing the contours of their uneasy shared histories. From the tumult of the Warring States Period to the present day, Man weaves a thrilling tale of battling warlords, imperial power plays, Soviet interference and contemporary political manoeuvring. Looking to the future of the region, Conquering the North canvasses the still fractious interplay of two rival cultures and the continuing struggle for Mongolian sovereignty as China continues to edge north.
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.”
