Hong Kong

by Jan Morris

Overview

In its last days under British rule, the Crown Colony of Hong Kong is the world’s most exciting city, at once fascinating and exasperating, a tangle of contradictions. It is a dazzling amalgam of conspicuous consumption and primitive poverty, the most architecturally incongruous yet undeniably beautiful urban panorama of all. World renowned travel writer Jan Morris offers the most insightful and comprehensive study of the enigma of Hong Kong thus far.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679776482
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/04/1997
Series:	Vintage Departures
Edition description:	REVISED
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jan Morris was born in 1926 to a Welsh father and an English mother, and when she is not travelling she lives with her partner in Wales, between the mountains and the sea. Her books include Coronation Everest, Venice, The Pax Britannica Trilogy (Heaven's Command, Pax Britannica, and Farewell the Trumpets), Conundrum, and Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. She is also the author of six books about cities and countries, two autobiographical books, and several volumes of collected travel essays. A Writer's World, a collection of her travel writing and reportage from over five decades, was published in 2003. Hav, her novel, was published in a new and expanded form in 2006.

Editorial Reviews

In this ``well-written, albeit overly detailed overview,'' Morris alternates chapters on Hong Kong's history with descriptions of its geography, economy, politics and society, interspersing word-portraits of some of its leading rulers and entrepreneurs. ``There is much more here than most American readers will want to know,'' said PW. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With the benefit of extensive reading and long observation, Morris writes of Hong Kong as it nears the end of its colonial status and moves toward the ``enigma of 1997,'' the reunification with China. In alternating chapters of history and analysis, Morris conveys the colony's restless energy, its drive for profit, its lighted hills, the jackhammers pounding to make new buildings. Her prose, spiced with adjectives and apt phrases, moves easily among government officials, traders and triads, and the Chinese populace of millionaires and refugees. This well-balanced description of Hong Kong's past andpresent ends with a perceptive chapter on the belated introduction of democracy as Britain prepares to leave the colony. An enjoyable book that should find many readers. Literary Guild alternate.-- Elizabeth A. Teo, Moraine Valley Community Coll. Lib., Palos Hills, Ill.

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