A01=Robert Bickers
archival materials
Author_Robert Bickers
Britain-in-China
British community
British diplomatic support
British imperialism
Britons
businessmen
Category=NHF
Category=NHTQ
China coast
Chinese nationalism
diplomats
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
imperial Britain
inter-war dissolution
mass nationalism
militant state
missionaries
Pacific War
reign of freelance
settler communities
settlers
traders
Product details
- ISBN 9780719056970
- Weight: 413g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jul 1999
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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This is a study of Britain's presence in China both at its peak, and during its inter-war dissolution in the face of assertive Chinese nationalism and declining British diplomatic support. Using archival materials from China and records in Britain and the United States, the author paints a portrait of the traders, missionaries, businessmen, diplomats and settlers who constituted "Britain-in-China", challenging our understanding of British imperialism there. Bickers argues that the British presence in China was dominated by urban settlers whose primary allegiance lay not with any grand imperial design, but with their own communities and precarious livelihoods. This brought them into conflict not only with the Chinese population, but with the British imperial government. The book also analyzes the formation and maintenance of settler identities, and then investigates how the British state and its allies brought an end to the reign of freelance, settler imperialism on the China coast. At the same time, other British sectors, missionary and business, renegotiated their own relationship with their Chinese markets and the Chinese state and distanced themselves from the settler British.
Robert Bickers is Professor of History and Deputy Head (Research) at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Bristol
