'This is a biography of a nobody that offers a window into an otherwise closed world. It is a life which manages to touch us all...' Empire Made Me Shanghai in the wake of the First World War was one of the world's most dynamic, brutal and exciting cities - an incredible panorama of nightclubs, opium-dens, gambling and murder. Threatened from within by communist workers and from without by Chinese warlords and Japanese troops, and governed by an ever more desperate British-dominated administration, Shanghai was both ...
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'This is a biography of a nobody that offers a window into an otherwise closed world. It is a life which manages to touch us all...' Empire Made Me Shanghai in the wake of the First World War was one of the world's most dynamic, brutal and exciting cities - an incredible panorama of nightclubs, opium-dens, gambling and murder. Threatened from within by communist workers and from without by Chinese warlords and Japanese troops, and governed by an ever more desperate British-dominated administration, Shanghai was both mesmerising and terrible.Into this maelstrom stepped a tough and resourceful ex-veteran Englishman to join the police. It is his story, told in part through his rediscovered photo-albums and letters, that Robert Bickers has uncovered in this remarkable, moving book.
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Good. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes).
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Fine in near fine jacket. First edition, 2003. Cloth hardcover in dust jacket, 409 pp., illustrated, clean unmarked text, Fine copy in Near Fine dust jacket. Uncommon.
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Good. Size: 5x0x7; Prompt shipment, with tracking. we ship in CLEAN SECURE boxes History; Good trade paperback with creasing, nicked, and prompt shipping with tracking.
This is the story of Richard Maurice Tinkler an ordinary Englishman who after fighting for his country in World war one found that his country has no job for him. He saw an ad of a policeman in Shanghai- Applicant must be unmarried, with good teeth, about 20 to 25 years of age. Salary is Taels 85 per month equivalent to 13 pounds per month.
He was given free passage to Shanghai. Sailed from Glasgow and arrived in 1919 via Port Said, Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong. ( See p 31-33 Bickers )
Coming from poverty-stricken England Tinkler was taken in by the prosperity he saw in Shanghai. Thus Tinkler became a man made by the British Empire and ended up An Englishman adrift in Shanghai.
Bickers has written a good history of Shanghai pre-World war two. He has used the life of a nondescript Englishman to illustrate well the social and political pre-war Shanghai. Recommended to those who want to know more of Shanghai history.