The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation [Hardcover]

Philip Snow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0300093527 | ISBN-13: 978-0300093520 | Edition: 1St Edition

An account of the wartime history of Hong Kong. On Christmas Day 1941 the Japanese captured Hong Kong, and Britain lost control of its Chinese colony for almost four years. The Japanese occupation was a turning point in the slow historical process by which the British were to be expelled from the colony and from four centuries of influence in East Asia. In this narrative, Philip Snow unravels the dramatic story of the occupation from the viewpoint of all the key players - the Hong Kong Chinese, the British, the Japanese, and the mainland Chinese - and reinterprets the subsequent evolution of Hong Kong in the light of this half-buried episode. Drawing on a range of sources across continents and across languages, Snow reveals what really happened: the widespread desertion of the British by Chinese personnel during the invasion; the acquiescence of the Asian upper class in the Japanese takeover; the vicious cruelty of the Japanese conquerors to the Chinese masses; and the post-war British decision to draw a veil over the occupation's murkier aspects. Now, with Hong Kong returned to the Chinese and its future closely tied to the commercial influence of Japan, the colony's wartime nemesis may hold the key to its survival in the 21st century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The definitive account of the wartime history of Hong Kong

Review

"[The Fall of Hong Kong] is very different, and very good. . . . Where [Snow] comes into its own is in his use of Japanese and Chinese as well as British sources, which offer a much more nuanced picture than has appeared before in English of life among Hong Kong's different communities before and during the Japanese occupation."—Economist

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (June 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300093527
• ISBN-13: 978-0300093520
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > History > Asia > Hong Kong

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons beyond the history of the colony, October 7, 2003

By 

Joseyo "dave-hom" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation (Hardcover)

In this well-researched and well-written book, Phillip Snow traces the history of the British Colony of Hong Kong, with the intent to show why Britain ultimately returned the colony to China. His thesis is that the Japanese occupation, a brief period of 3 years 8 months, out of the more than 100 years that the colony was in British hands, was the critical watershed which made British relinquishment inevitable. Britain's prestige and authority were mortally wounded by the loss of Hong Kong and the other colonies in South East Asia to the Japanese. This weakened position set in train a chain of events that ultimately lead to 1997. The story is a fascinating one.
Snow also traces the waves of reform and repression that Hong Kong's rulers have pursued over the years. He argues that the periods of liberalism were driven by outside events and calculations, rather than a sincere concern for the welfare Hong Kong's citizens, but gives credit to the efforts and the truly liberal figures in each of the administrations, pre-war British, Japanese, and post-war British. Snow is at some pains to give the benefit of the doubt to each of these regimes, and the work is fair and even-handed.
Although the Fall of Hong Kong was clearly written for the British audience struggling to come to terms with the substantial end of their empire, it should be of great value to the Hong Kong Chinese, who are also struggling to understand their history and place in the world. However, it would also be very useful to any students of empire, as phases of liberalism and oppression, enlistment and alienation of the society's elites, by both the Japanese and British, give excellent lessons to anyone contemplating ruling another nation with a different culture.
Finally, it is an excellent survey of the 20th Century history of Hong Kong, which will be invaluable to any student of the period. This work and its extensive footnotes should stimulate a mini-boom in research on the period.

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, detailed and researched, March 24, 2010

By 

Jan Brassem - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation (Paperback)

As a professional writer I can be especially critical on an author who does not do his homeworks or leaves imagination at home.

This historically detailed book is a must for any reader who is interested in the history, prewar culture and military blunders of WWII Hong Kong.

It is a must read.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for all Hong Kong history buffs, November 8, 2009

By 

Susan Blumberg-Kason (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation (Paperback)

Like the other reviewer, I thought the cover photo did the book a slight injustice, as did the sub-title. When I bought the book a couple years ago, I, too, thought it was a military history of Hong Kong during WWII and the Japanese occupation. But as I got into the book, I realized it included a whole lot more. I don't normally read military histories, but have been reading about Hong Kong for 20 years and picked up the book because it dealt with the territory. I loved Snow's ability to tell the story of 20th century Hong Kong from the perspective of all the players: the Cantonese, Japanese, British, Indians, Eurasians, and Nationalist and Communist mainland Chinese. He shows the good and bad of all these groups and adds colorful characteristics of some of the more eccentric players, like the one-legged General Chan Chuk of the Nationalist army.

Before I read this book, I had no idea that Britain's return to HK after WWII was basically a stroke of luck. If there hadn't been a brewing civil war on the mainland, or if Roosevelt had not died before the end of WWII, HK would have been returned to the mainland upon the Japanese surrender. I also learned that for a time just after the war, the British wanted to completely change HK society, doing away with the apartheid state that existed before the war. With the appointment of Grantham as governor (who ironically has a secondary school in HK named after him), most of those reforms were pulled back and not re-introduced until years later.

I would have liked to know more about the Indians after 1952, when they were kicked out of the police force. I know that most of the security guards in banks and gold shops in present day HK are Sikh, but always thought that they had retired from the police before the handover. From "The Fall of Hong Kong", it would seem unlikely that these guards were ever in the force. I also would have liked to learn about the other European communities in Hong Kong before and after the fall, like the Jews and Russians, but Snow hardly mentions them.

Nonetheless, I found "The Fall of Hong Kong" to be the most comprehensive history of modern Hong Kong.