Hong Kong

By: Jan Morris

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

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.

Through firsthand reportage, world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris takes us through the crowded streets of this enigmatic city, offering the most insightful and comprehensive study of Hong Kong thus far. She reviews Hong Kong’s early days as a British opium port controlled by pirates, cutthroats, and scoundrel tycoons, and looks ahead to the city’s future as part of the People’s Republic of China.

©1985 1987, 1988, 1989 by Jan Morris (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

great historical work

she's also a great trans historian as well. I'm happy to have read the second of her works.

great history of hong kong

got a good perspective on the history of Hong Kong. good sense of History dogs

The historic viewpoint of the origins of Hong Kong

The book was a interesting view of how Hong Kong grew from the past of uncertainty. While the story is kinda outdated, it's still a interesting book to find out more about the origins of Hong Kong.

Great history book

This should be titled “The history of the British in Hong Kong, and insights into 1970’s Hong Kong”. That is what this book is. It is half a history of the city by the masterful historian of the British Empire Jan Morris. Half book about Hong Kong in the 1970’s including descriptions of fancy European clubs and restaurants and a sort of travel guide for the city at the time. A overview of the 1970’s colonial government and diplomatic situation with China is also given. The flaws of the book is first that it is entirely from a British perspective and has very little to say about the Chinese population of the city besides the ultra wealthy who worked with the Europeans. The second flaw is that the travel guide parts of the book are some 50 years old and often quite outdated and a bit boring. That said I love Jan Morrris’s history books on the British Empire and the historical chapters here are like an excellent lost part of her trilogy. I would highly recommend this book to any Hong Kong fans who want to know more about the British heritage of the city.

Brilliant!

Really interesting and nostalgic review of HK until 1990, great to hear such views at this interesting time in our city