China

Henry McAleavy describes how the last Chinese imperial dynasty owed its origins to a petty Manchurian chieftain, Nurhaci, who revolted against his Chinese overlords, whose son invaded and conquered China, and whose grandson occupied the Dragon Throne.

In October 1860, writes E.W.R. Lumby, a humane and liberal-minded British emissary felt obliged to order an act of vandalism in Peking.

In 1912 the Manchu Emperor abdicated in Peking. Henry McAleavy describes how there began a confused period in Chinese history during which both the Nationalist Kuomintang and the Communist party were founded.

Victor Allan describes the Cambridge tutor in mathematics, friend of Charles Lamb, who became the first Englishman to walk the streets of the Tibetan capital.

A gifted utilitarian, and sometime Member of Parliament, Douglas Hurd writes that John Bowring spent ten tumultuous years in China where he believed in supporting the cause of progress with British gunboats.

 “I am a Jingo in the best acceptation of that sobriquet... To see England great is my highest aspiration, and to lead in contributing to that greatness is my only real ambition.” By Edgar Holt. 

G.D. Sheppard uncovers three audacious and previously unknown fabrications by an English sinologist, which threatened to rock Britain’s diplomatic relations with China in the 1930s.

Throughout the years of Chinese self-questioning in the second half of the nineteenth century, Tz’u Hsi, the Empress Dowager, held the stage, untouched by the new thought. By Richard Harris.

That an occupant of the Celestial Throne should fall into the hands of the barbarians was an unprecedented catastrophe. Nora C. Buckley describes how the situation was cleverly dealt with by his ministers.