The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation

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Yale University Press, Jan 1, 2003 - History - 477 pages
The definitive account of the wartime history of Hong Kong

On Christmas Day 1941 the Japanese captured Hong Kong, and Britain lost control of its Chinese colony for almost four years, a turning point in the process by which the British were to be expelled from the colony and from East Asia. This book unravels for the first time the dramatic story of the Japanese occupation and reinterprets the subsequent evolution of Hong Kong.

"Magnificent. . . . The clarity of mind Snow brings to his labor of storytelling and contextualizing is] amazing."--John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph

"Beautifully written, with many telling anecdotes."--Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs

"Very good. . . . Provides] a much more nuanced picture than has appeared before in English of life among Hong Kong's different communities before and during the Japanese occupation."--Economist

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About the author (2003)

Philip Snow is an orientalist educated at Oxford University. The son of the writers C. P. Snow and Pamela Hansford Johnson, he is author of the acclaimed The Star Raft: China's Encounter with Africa.

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