Book Review

Comparative/World

This mature and insightful volume could be considered under various rubrics: British history; Chinese history (was the knockoff British Raj in China a small scale successor to Mongol and Manchu regimes?); history of imperialism; and cultural history—not to mention "readable books to recommend to friends and students." The focus is not on institutional or diplomatic history, although there is substantial use of the literature in these fields, nor yet on political imperialism as such, although that context is also well sketched. Instead, we look at how the British cultural and political "presence" in China worked. Territorially, this presence comprised two British-dominated international settlements (Shanghai and Tianjin), the crown colony of Hong Kong, two leased territories, six concessions, and diverse outlying commercial or missionary networks reaching from Manchuria to Burma. The settler community of Shanghai was the spiritual capital, and "Shanghailanders" developed sweet self-important dreams of their own significance for Britain, China, and civilization, all to be defended by pomp and force. By the 1920s, however, Shanghai was caught between Chinese nationalism and British national interest, neither of which could tolerate a racist, blinkered Shanghai-stan whose constabulary fired into Chinese crowds, endangering sales, imperial prestige, and diplomacy. Ironically, Shanghailanders and testy anti-imperialists shared heroic myths of a roaring imperial lion that respectively either woke or raped the sleeping dragon. Robert Bickers's story carefully shows how fleeting and circumstantial was the effect of this "mock Raj" (p. 219).

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