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Article: Empire discontinued; The history of Hong Kong.("The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation")(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 7, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AS A title, "The Fall of Hong Kong" suggests one of those breathless works, usually from a very short and very British perspective, that were rushed out around the time of Hong Kong's return to China at midnight on June 30th 1997. This book is very different, and very good.
Philip Snow's organising thesis is that Britain lost Hong Kong not on that choreographed day of military pomp and precision, but on a humiliating Christmas Day in 1941, when the commanding general of the Japanese forces received the British surrender from the governor in a Peninsula hotel without electricity. This was the first crown colony Britain had lost to force since Yorktown. It had been ...