This book tells the fascinating story of the war between England and China that delivered Hong Kong to the English, forced the imperial Chinese government to add four ports to Canton as places in which foreigners could live and trade, and rendered irreversible the process that for almost a century thereafter distinguished western relations with this quarter of the globe-- the process that is loosely termed the ""opening of China.""
Originally published by UNC Press in 1975, Peter Ward Fay's study was the first to treat extensively the opium trade from the point of production in India to the point of consumption in China and the first to give both Protestant and Catholic missionaries their due; it remains the most comprehensive account of the first Opium War through western eyes. In a new preface, Fay reflects on the relationship between the events described in the book and Hong Kong's more recent history.
|A narrative history of the first Opium War between Britain and China in 1840-42, an event that resulted in the opening of China to wider Western influence and in the cession of Hong Kong to the British.
- ISBN10 0807861367
- ISBN13 9780807861363
- Publish Date December 1997 (first published 1 January 1975)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
- Edition Revised ed.
- Format eBook
- Pages 440
- Language English