| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

John M. Carroll. Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2005. Pp. xii, 260. $39.95.
Even more than most new history monographs, John M. Carroll's carefully argued, informative study of the Hong Kong bourgeoisie circa 1841–1941 is one that it is easy to imagine readers picking up with very different goals in mind, only to come away with contrasting senses of the novelty and importance of its arguments. The author has interesting things to say about a variety of specific individuals (including colorful figures who moved skillfully between different cultural milieus), institutions (such as the fascinating "District Watch" system of maintaining order in the overwhelmingly Chinese sections of Hong Kong), and events (including the jubilee celebrated on the Crown Colony's fiftieth birthday). But how successfully the book accomplishes larger goals—goals that include shedding light on these individuals, institutions, and events, but also contributing to several scholarly literatures—is sure to be affected by the reader's motivations. For example, it will make a difference if this imagined reader is particularly interested in one or the other of the two empires at whose edges Carroll situates Hong Kong, which he characterizes as a "declining" Chinese and an "ascendant" British one, respectively (p. 2).	1
Personally I was not especially eager to gain insight into the history of either the British or Chinese empires, per se, nor did the specific locale that is the site of this case study hold a special allure. Rather, my main hope in picking up the book was that I would increase my understanding of another city, Shanghai, which I am convinced in its 1840s–1940s treaty port incarnation is well worth treating in the manner that Carroll insists Hong Kong should be treated: namely, as a metropolis that was certainly shaped by contending imperial projects but should be viewed "as its own cultural-historical place," not simply a by-product or part of any nation or empire and hence a city whose past can be fit neatly into a standard national or imperial narrative.	. . .

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