470
and Society in Hong Kong would have been merited.
Clearly a book into which Gillian has put a great deal of effort.
PETER HALLIDAY
Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 348 pages (text), plus 129 pages (notes, bibliography, index), and 16 pages (plates), 2003.
Philip Snow has done historians of Hong Kong a great service in producing this generally excellent book. His grasp of the sources for the period 1940-1946 is wide. He has consulted archives in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei (although he seems to have missed the Harcourt archive, and the unpublished war-diaries in the Muniments of the Imperial War Museum, in London), and has read very widely, consulting both collections of original documents and secondary material, in Chinese and Japanese as well as in English. The index to the book is excellent - indeed, rather better than merely excellent. The result is a book which will be a standard for many years to come. The plates included, however, are relatively ordinary: more plates, and plates more tightly connected with the text, would have been valuable. More photographs of the major figures of the Occupation period, both Japanese and local Chinese, would have been very welcome. As so often, alas, better maps would have benefited the book greatly.
Despite the title, the book has relatively little to say on the Battle of Hong Kong, the actual progress of the fighting in Hong Kong, or the fall of Hong Kong: presumably because there are other books which cover the actual fighting well. What the book does above all is illustrate in detail, and very convincingly, the months leading up to the Battle (the Governorship of Sir Mark Young), the developments in Hong Kong under the Japanese, and the post-war period of the Harcourt and restored Mark Young administrations. None of these periods has been entirely adequately covered elsewhere, and this book is the more valuable in consequence,
The book is particularly valuable in clearly identifying the changes which took place in Japanese attitudes to Hong Kong in the 3 years and
470
and Society in Hong Kong would have been merited.
Clearly a book into which Gillian has put a great deal of effort.
PETER HALLIDAY
Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 348 pages (text), plus 129 pages (notes, bibliography, index), and 16 pages (plates), 2003.
Philip Snow has done historians of Hong Kong a great service in producing this generally excellent book. His grasp of the sources for the period 1940-1946 is wide. He has consulted archives in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei (although he seems to have missed the Harcourt archive, and the unpublished war-diaries in the Muniments of the Imperial War Museum, in London), and has read very widely, consulting both collections of original documents and secondary material, in Chinese and Japanese as well as in English. The index to the book is excellent - indeed, rather better than merely excellent. The result is a book which will be a standard for many years to come. The plates included, however, are relatively ordinary: more plates, and plates more tightly connected with the text, would have been valuable. More photographs of the major figures of the Occupation period, both Japanese and local Chinese, would have been very welcome. As so often, alas, better maps would have benefited the book greatly.
Despite the title, the book has relatively little to say on the Battle of Hong Kong, the actual progress of the fighting in Hong Kong, or the fall of Hong Kong: presumably because there are other books which cover the actual fighting well. What the book does above all is illustrate in detail, and very convincingly, the months leading up to the Battle (the Governorship of Sir Mark Young), the developments in Hong Kong under the Japanese, and the post-war period of the Harcourt and restored Mark Young administrations. None of these periods has been entirely adequately covered elsewhere, and this book is the more valuable in
consequence,
The book is particularly valuable in clearly identifying the changes which took place in Japanese attitudes to Hong Kong in the 3 years and
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