[
    {
        "id": 205468,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1968",
        "page_number": 10,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "4\n\nroom for the Society and its library in a large room of the Supreme Court.\n\nDuring the year we suffered the loss of our very efficient Hon. Secretary Miss Michaeliones who was transferred to the British Council at Leeds and also of our Hon. Treasurer Mr. Lanchester of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. We have, however, been fortunate in having as Hon. Secretary Mr. T. H. Thomas of the British Council and as Hon. Treasurer Mr. D. A. Gilkes, a Chartered Accountant on the administrative staff of the Chinese University and we are deeply grateful to them for undertaking a task which occupies so much of their time and labour and those of their staff.\n\nI cannot conclude without expressing again our deep appreciation of the support and assistance given to the Society by the British Council and its staff. The Society's early meetings were held in its library; the Council of the Society holds all its meetings in its office; it has provided us with three successive Hon. Secretaries who with their staff, and in particular the indispensable Mrs. O'Hara, have been a tower of strength on which we have relied from the days when the Hong Kong Branch was re-established in 1959.\n\n8 April, 1968\n\nJ. R. JONES\n\nLectures in 1967 comprised: -\n\n16 January\n\nMajor Michael Banks, R.M.\n\nA Wall of Snow: Exploration and Mountaineering in the Himalayas, Arctic Greenland, Alaska and the Yukon.\n\n13 February\n\nMr. Chuang C. Shen\n\n\"Early Chinese Buddhist Paintings in Tunhuang.\"\n\n6 March\n\nProfessor J. R. Levenson\n\n'A Dialectical View of Confucius.\n\n1 April\n\nVisit to Places of Interest on Hong Kong Island.\n\n3 April\n\nAnnual General Meeting.\n\n17 May\n\nMr. Hugh Gibb\n\nThree films on Angkor and one on \"The People of the Great Lake.\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212402,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 344,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "321\n\nDudden's work is essentially narrative history based upon Western-language secondary sources. Beginning with a summary of early American involvement in the China trade, he proceeds to describe the United States' acquisition of and subsequent relations with Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines. After surveying the contrasting course of American dealings with Japan and China up to World War I, he covers the Pacific War, the beginning of the Cold War, and American intervention in Korea and Vietnam. A final chapter deals with the somewhat ambiguous developments of the past two decades.\n\nThe early portion of the book tells the fascinating story of how the American Republic gained its two last states and its largest colony. An irredeemably commercial nation, the United States purchased two large tracts of its own territory, Louisiana from the Emperor Napoleon I of France in 1803 and Alaska from the Russian Tsar Alexander II in 1867. Until 1910 the near exclusive domain of fur trading companies and gold miners, Alaska's sparse population and remoteness meant that, despite its mineral wealth, only in 1958 did it win statehood. Not until 1778, when Captain James Cook's final expedition landed there, did Westerners discover the Hawaiian islands, \"the most isolated archipelago in the world\". Once found, they became a magnet attracting American whalers, merchants, and missionaries. In the 1820s the last group assisted Queen Kaahumanu, one of the widows of King Kamehameha the Great, 'a six-foot, three-hundred-pound, strong-willed beauty', to overthrow the dominant religious kapu system which among other things banned women from exercising political power. From then onwards successive rulers were under the tutelage of Americans, who eliminated the native religion, advised the monarchs, and introduced private property rights in land. Soon afterwards, American sugar and pineapple interests acquired large holdings, which would dominate Hawaiian economic and political life until after World War II. In the 1890s the efforts of the anti-American Queen Liliuokalani to restore the powers of the monarchy led to a coup, backed by American sugar interests, and suggestions that the United States annex the islands, also long coveted by French, German, and British imperialists. Congress initially rejected the suggestion, but in 1898, in the war-generated expansionism of the Spanish-American War, reversed itself. Hawaii would become a major American naval base, a centre of tourism, and a focus of Japanese immigration: the attack on Pearl Harbour",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215810,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 109,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "42\n\nthe year, relatively clear months like July and August might also be problematic since the middle of the year was the rainy season. Air power, one of the Allies' biggest assets, might not realize its full potential over Hong Kong.\n\nAnother factor in which the Allies were much better endowed than their opponents was artillery, including naval gunfire. The latter had been, and would continue to be, invaluable in pulverising land targets before the actual amphibious landings. But naval and land-based artillery were very dependent on aerial and ground observers to achieve accuracy. If these were limited by cloud and fog, enemy targets would be inadequately softened up or even missed, thereby leaving more of the work to the ground forces. Then the role of Hong Kong's ubiquitous mountains would become even more prominent. Even on a good day, artillery cannot completely neutralise an enemy who is well dug into a mountain. But it can still keep the enemy pinned down, making it hard for him to shoot back or launch counterattacks. A deficiency or absence of artillery and aerial support brought about by cloud and fog provides the enemy with a chance to come out and pull off a few surprises, especially an enemy who lives by the sneak attack like the Japanese.\n\nConversely, barrage balloons benefit from low ceilings because they could hide in the overcast sky, with only their thin wires exposed, and wait for unsuspecting enemy aircraft that may be flying low. Barrage balloons could be worthy supplements to the progressively effective Allied combat air patrol (CAP), which was a constant umbrella of aircraft patrolling the skies over any Allied position. When the CAP is limited by cloud and fog, barrage balloons can partially fill the void. The winter months in Hong Kong (the beginning of the year) were generally the best time to employ barrage balloons.\n\nTemperature and humidity\n\nHong Kong's temperatures only go in one extreme - upwards. Even during winter, they almost never approach freezing (32°F/0°C). February, Hong Kong's coldest month, averages a tolerable 59°F (15°C) Certainly Hong Kong would not be mistaken for the Soviet Union or Alaska.\n\nBut the mid-spring to summer months (April to September) would",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]