China

Gradually the Chinese Nationalists prevailed over the provincial war-lords, but meanwhile, writes Henry McAleavy, the fatal breach occurred with the Communists.

Henry McAleavy traces both the daring adventures and wavering fortunes of an unusually cultured Chinese 'Singing Girl' of the Boxer era.

Henry McAleavy describes how the last Chinese imperial dynasty owed its origins to a petty Manchurian chieftain, Nurhaci, who revolted against his Chinese overlords, whose son invaded and conquered China, and whose grandson occupied the Dragon Throne.

In October 1860, writes E.W.R. Lumby, a humane and liberal-minded British emissary felt obliged to order an act of vandalism in Peking.

In 1912 the Manchu Emperor abdicated in Peking. Henry McAleavy describes how there began a confused period in Chinese history during which both the Nationalist Kuomintang and the Communist party were founded.

Victor Allan describes the Cambridge tutor in mathematics, friend of Charles Lamb, who became the first Englishman to walk the streets of the Tibetan capital.

A gifted utilitarian, and sometime Member of Parliament, Douglas Hurd writes that John Bowring spent ten tumultuous years in China where he believed in supporting the cause of progress with British gunboats.

 “I am a Jingo in the best acceptation of that sobriquet... To see England great is my highest aspiration, and to lead in contributing to that greatness is my only real ambition.” By Edgar Holt. 

G.D. Sheppard uncovers three audacious and previously unknown fabrications by an English sinologist, which threatened to rock Britain’s diplomatic relations with China in the 1930s.