Hong Kong and British culture, 1945-97

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This book reveals the British cultural engagement with Hong Kong in the second half of the twentieth century. It shows how the territory fit unusually within Britain's decolonisation narratives and at the same time served as an occasional foil for examining Britain's own culture during a period of perceived stagnation and decline.In the British imagination, Hong Kong was a triumph of modernity. Once dismissed by Lord Palmerston as a 'barren island with hardly a house on it', in the late twentieth century it was recast as the site of one of British imperialism's greatest achievements. The book examines the extent to which Hong Kong's Chinese embraced British culture, and analyses the optimistic and apocalyptic predictions made about Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. The primary sources include a wide range of archival collections from Hong Kong, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as novels, journalistic accounts, popular histories, economics textbooks and children's books. Hong Kong and British culture, 1945-97 will be essential reading for historians of Hong Kong, British decolonisation, and Britain's culture of declinism.