Books

City University of Hong Kong Press

City University of Hong Kong Press was founded in 1996 as the publishing arm of the City University of Hong Kong. Overseen by the University Press Committee, the continuing mission of the Press is, by way of publishing high quality titles, to promote scholarship; to enhance knowledge transfer; and to disseminate knowledge and creative works to society at large.The Press publishes mainly three types of publication: academic works, professional books and books of general interest and social concern. These cover a wide range of fields including business, history, cultural studies, education, law, political science, social sciences, sciences and engineering, with a focus on China studies, Hong Kong studies, Asian studies, politics and public policy. The Press endeavours to produce works of social impact, regional and international significance, and lasting value.
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Hong Kong University Press

香港大學出版社
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Colonialism & imperialism

May 2017

Hong Kong and British culture, 1945–97

by Mark Hampton. Series edited by Andrew S. Thompson, John Mackenzie

This book examines 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 served as an occasional foil for examining Britain's own culture during a period of perceived stagnation and decline. Drawing on a wide range of archival and published primary sources, Hong Kong and British culture, 1945-97 investigates such themes as Hong Kong as a site of unrestrained capitalism, modernisation, and good government, as well as an arena of male social and sexual opportunity. It also examines the ways in which Hong Kong Chinese embraced British culture, and the competing predictions that British observers made concerning the colony's return to Chinese sovereignty. An epilogue considers the enduring legacy of British colonialism.

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Literature & Literary Studies

March 2017

Asia in Western fiction

by Robin Winks

Any reader who has ever visited Asia knows that the great bulk of Western-language fiction about Asian cultures turns on stereotypes. This book, a collection of essays, explores the problem of entering Asian societies through Western fiction, since this is the major port of entry for most school children, university students and most adults. In the thirteenth century, serious attempts were made to understand Asian literature for its own sake. Hau Kioou Choaan, a typical Chinese novel, was quite different from the wild and magical pseudo-Oriental tales. European perceptions of the Muslim world are centuries old, originating in medieval Christendom's encounter with Islam in the age of the Crusades. There is explicit and sustained criticism of medieval mores and values in Scott's novels set in the Middle Ages, and this is to be true of much English-language historical fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even mediocre novels take on momentary importance because of the pervasive power of India. The awesome, remote and inaccessible Himalayas inevitably became for Western writers an idealised setting for novels of magic, romance and high adventure, and for travellers' tales that read like fiction. Chinese fictions flourish in many guises. Most contemporary Hong Kong fiction reinforced corrupt mandarins, barbaric punishments and heathens. Of the novels about Japan published after 1945, two may serve to frame a discussion of Japanese behaviour as it could be observed (or imagined) by prisoners of war: Black Fountains and Three Bamboos.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

May 2023

Devolution in Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region

by Georgina Blakeley, Brendan Evans

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Humanities & Social Sciences

March 2017

The empire in one city?

Liverpool's inconvenient imperial past

by Sheryllynne Haggerty, Andrew Thompson, Anthony Webster, John M. MacKenzie, Nicholas J. White

From the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, Liverpool was frequently referred to as the 'second city of the empire'. Yet, the role of Liverpool within the British imperial system and the impact on the city of its colonial connections remain underplayed in recent writing on both Liverpool and the empire. However, 'inconvenient' this may prove, this specially-commissioned collection of essays demonstrates that the imperial dimension deserves more prevalence in both academic and popular representations of Liverpool's past. Indeed, if Liverpool does represent the 'World in One City' - the slogan for Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture in 2008 - it could be argued that this is largely down to Merseyside's long-term interactions with the colonial world, and the legacies of that imperial history. In the context of Capital of Culture year and growing interest in the relationship between British provincial cities and the British empire, this book will find a wide audience amongst academics, students and history enthusiasts generally.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

May 2016

Hong Kong and British culture, 1945–97

by Mark Hampton, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie

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Humanities & Social Sciences

May 2016

Hong Kong and British culture, 1945–97

by Mark Hampton, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie, Rebecca Mortimer

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The Arts

September 2024

The renewal of post-war Manchester

Planning, architecture and the state

by Richard Brook

A compelling account of the project to transform post-war Manchester, revealing the clash between utopian vision and compromised reality. Urban renewal in Britain was thrilling in its vision, yet partial and incomplete in its implementation. For the first time, this deep study of a renewal city reveals the complex networks of actors behind physical change and stagnation in post-war Britain. Using the nested scales of region, city and case-study sites, the book explores the relationships between Whitehall legislation, its interpretation by local government planning officers and the on-the-ground impact through urban architectural projects. Each chapter highlights the connections between policy goals, global narratives and the design and construction of cities. The Cold War, decolonialisation, rising consumerism and the oil crisis all feature in a richly illustrated account of architecture and planning in post-war Manchester.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

August 2024

The machinic city

Media, performance and participation

by Marcos P. Dias

As human and machine agency become increasingly intermingled and digital media is overlaid onto the urban landscape, The machinic city argues that performance art can help us to understand contemporary urban living. Dias analyses interventions from performance artists such as Blast Theory, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Rimini Protokoll, which draw from a rich history of avant-garde art movements to create spaces for deliberation and reflection on urban life, and speculation on its future. While cities are increasingly controlled by autonomous processes mediated by technical machines, Dias analyses the performative potential of the aesthetic machine, as it assembles with media, capitalist, human and urban machines. The aesthetic machine of performance art in urban space is examined through its different components - design, city and technology actants. This unveils the unpredictable nature and emerging potential of performance art as it unfolds in the machinic city.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

February 2024

‘Survival Capitalism’ and the Big Bang

Culture, contingency and capital in the making of the 1980s financial revolution

by Emma Barrett

This book about the Thatcher government and the City of London tells the compelling human story of the people and processes that made Britain's 1980s financial revolution. Fusing insider testimony with new archival discoveries, it examines high stakes and networked solutions, and uncovers new objectives that drove reforms. In so doing it demystifies a major shift in capitalism. This has implications for our understandings of government and capitalism, from the way we think about the origins of subsequent financial crises to today's growing inequalities. Survival Capitalism offers new insights into the last major restructuring of the City, disrupts myths surrounding the logics of the market, and pays attention to people and processes at a time when the City of London again faces major change as Britain seeks to find its place outside the European Union in the wake of Brexit.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

August 2002

City of Revolution

Restructuring Manchester

by Jamie Peck, Kevin Ward, Martin Hargreaves

Provides a critical account of one of Europe's most celebrated examples of urban transformation, getting beneath the hype to ask what has really changed in the 'new' Manchester.. The first comprehensive account of contemporary political and economic change in Manchester.. Explores the costs and consequences of making the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial or 'entrepreneurial' city, with broad implications for other major cities. ;

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Geography & the Environment

August 2020

Urban transformations and public health in the emergent city

by Michael Keith, Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, Susan Parnell

The imperatives of public health shaped our understanding of the cities of the global north in the first industrial revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They are doing so again today, reflecting new geographies of the urban age of the twenty-first. Emergent cities in parts of the globe experiencing most profound urban growth face major problems of economic, ecological and social sustainability when making sense of new health challenges and designing policy frameworks for public health infrastructures. The rapid evolution of complex 'systems of systems' in today's cities continually reconfigure the urban commons, reshaping how we understand urban public health, defining new problems and drawing on new data tools for analysis that work from the historical legacies and geographical variations that structure public health systems.

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Biography & True Stories

May 2025

Mrs Dalloway

Biography of a novel

by Mark Hussey

A compelling biography of one of the most celebrated novels in the English language. The fourth and best-known of Virginia Woolf's novels, Mrs Dalloway is a modernist masterpiece that has remained popular since its publication in 1925. Its dual narratives follow a day in the life of wealthy housewife Clarissa Dalloway and shell-shocked war veteran Septimus Warren Smith, capturing their inner worlds with a vividness that has rarely been equalled. Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel offers new readers a lively introduction to this enduring classic, while providing Woolf lovers with a wealth of information about the novel's writing, publication and reception. It follows Woolf's process from the first stirrings in her diary through her struggles to create what was quickly recognised as a major advance in prose fiction. It then traces the novel's remarkable legacy to the present day. Woolf wrote in her diary that she wanted her novel 'to give life & death, sanity & insanity. to criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense.' Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel reveals how she achieved this ambition, creating a book that will be read by generations to come.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

April 2016

University engagement and environmental sustainability

by Michael Osborne, Patricia Inman, Diana Robinson

Universities have a key role to play in contributing to environmental development and combating climate change. The chapters within this volume detail the challenges faced by higher education institutions in considering environmental sustainability, and provide both a broad view of university engagement and a detailed examination of various projects. As part of this series in association with the Place and Social Capital and Learning (PASCAL) International Observatory, the three key PASCAL themes of place management, lifelong learning and the development of social capital are considered throughout the book. While universities have historically generated knowledge outside of specific local contexts, this book argues that it is particularly important for them to engage with the local community and to consider diverse perspectives and assets when looking at issues within an ecological context. The chapters in this volume provide new perspectives and frames of reference for transforming universities by engaging in the development of resilient communities.

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Business, Economics & Law

July 2024

The business of time

A global history of the watch industry

by Pierre-Yves Donzé

The business of time presents a comprehensive history of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Watch production in the twenty-first century is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. The industry is dominated by a dozen or so large companies, including the Swatch Group, Richemont, LVMH, Seiko and Fossil. But a hundred years ago the picture was dramatically different. Over the course of a century, Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the manufacture of watches disappear from their territory. At the same time, Hong Kong went from being a subcontractor of watch components to an intermediary between Chinese factories and the world market. Revealing the conditions that drove the spread of watch production around the globe, The business of time explains how multinationals emerged to dominate the industry and highlights how Swiss companies were able to establish themselves as the undisputed leader in luxury watches.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

September 2024

Covert colonialism

by Florence Mok

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Humanities & Social Sciences

October 2021

Higher education in a globalising world

Community engagement and lifelong learning

by Peter Mayo

This book focuses on current policy discourse in Higher Education, with special reference to Europe. It discusses globalisation, Lifelong Learning, the EU's Higher Education discourse, this discourse's regional ramifications and alternative practices in Higher Education from both the minority and majority worlds with their different learning traditions and epistemologies. It argues that these alternative practices could well provide the germs for the shape of a public good oriented Higher Education for the future. It theoretically expounds on important elements to consider when engaging Higher Education and communities, discussing the nature of the term 'community' itself. Special reference is accorded to the difference that lies at the core of these ever-changing communities. It then provides an analysis of an 'on the ground project' in University community engagement, before suggesting signposts for further action at the level of policy and provision. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4, Quality education

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Humanities & Social Sciences

July 2022

Jacopo da Varagine's Chronicle of the city of Genoa

by C. E. Beneš

This book offers the first English translation of the Chronicle of the city of Genoa by the thirteenth-century Dominican Jacopo da Varagine, an author best known for his monumental book of saints' lives, the Golden legend. Jacopo's Chronicle presents a coherent vision of Genoa's place in history, the cosmos and Creation as written by the city's own archbishop - mixing eyewitness accounts with scholarly research about the city's origins and didactic reflections on the proper conduct of public and private life. Accompanied by an extensive introduction, this complete translation provides a unique perspective on a dynamic medieval city-state from one of its most important officials, broadening the available literature in English on medieval Italian urban life.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

November 2019

Jacopo da Varagine's Chronicle of the city of Genoa

by Carrie Beneš, Rosemary Horrox

This book offers the first English translation of the Chronicle of the city of Genoa by the thirteenth-century Dominican Jacopo da Varagine, an author best known for his monumental book of saints' lives, the Golden legend. Jacopo's Chronicle presents a coherent vision of Genoa's place in history, the cosmos and Creation as written by the city's own archbishop - mixing eyewitness accounts with scholarly research about the city's origins and didactic reflections on the proper conduct of public and private life. Accompanied by an extensive introduction, this complete translation provides a unique perspective on a dynamic medieval city-state from one of its most important officials, broadening the available literature in English on medieval Italian urban life.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

November 2019

Jacopo da Varagine's Chronicle of the city of Genoa

by C. E. Beneš, Rosemary Horrox

This book offers the first English translation of the Chronicle of the city of Genoa by the thirteenth-century Dominican Jacopo da Varagine, an author best known for his monumental book of saints' lives, the Golden legend. Jacopo's Chronicle presents a coherent vision of Genoa's place in history, the cosmos and Creation as written by the city's own archbishop - mixing eyewitness accounts with scholarly research about the city's origins and didactic reflections on the proper conduct of public and private life. Accompanied by an extensive introduction, this complete translation provides a unique perspective on a dynamic medieval city-state from one of its most important officials, broadening the available literature in English on medieval Italian urban life.

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Literature & Literary Studies

January 2014

Court and civic society in the Burgundian Low Countries c.1420–1530

by Andrew Brown, Graeme Small

This volume is the first ever attempt to unite and translate some of the key texts which informed Johan Huizinga's famous study of the Burgundian court, The Waning of the Middle Ages, a work which has never gone out of print. It combines these texts with sources that Huizinga did not consider, those that illuminate the wider civic world that the Burgundian court inhabited and the dynamic interaction between court and city. Through these sources, and an introduction offering new perspectives on recent historiography, the book tests whether Huizinga's controversial vision of the period still stands. Covering subjects including ceremonial events, such as the spectacles and gargantuan banquets that made the Burgundian dukes the talk of Europe, the workings of the court, and jousting, archery and rhetoric competitions, the book will appeal to students of late medieval and early modern Europe and to those with wider interests in court culture, ritual and ceremony.

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by Mark Hampton. Series edited by Andrew S. Thompson, John Mackenzie

by Robin Winks

by Georgina Blakeley, Brendan Evans

Liverpool's inconvenient imperial past

by Sheryllynne Haggerty, Andrew Thompson, Anthony Webster, John M. MacKenzie, Nicholas J. White

by Mark Hampton, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie

by Mark Hampton, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie, Rebecca Mortimer

Planning, architecture and the state

by Richard Brook

Media, performance and participation

by Marcos P. Dias

Culture, contingency and capital in the making of the 1980s financial revolution

by Emma Barrett

Restructuring Manchester

by Jamie Peck, Kevin Ward, Martin Hargreaves

by Michael Keith, Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, Susan Parnell

Biography of a novel

by Mark Hussey

by Michael Osborne, Patricia Inman, Diana Robinson

A global history of the watch industry

by Pierre-Yves Donzé

by Florence Mok

Community engagement and lifelong learning

by Peter Mayo

by C. E. Beneš

by Carrie Beneš, Rosemary Horrox

by C. E. Beneš, Rosemary Horrox

by Andrew Brown, Graeme Small

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