- Hardcover: 409 pages
- Publisher: Columbia University Press (Jan 6 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0231131321
- ISBN-13: 978-0231131322
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.5 x 0.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 585 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,855,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Informative... energetically written. Making his way warily between the anti-imperialists and the nostalgists of empire, placing a 'marginal' man in his full context, Bickers does lift a corner of the curtain on a nearly lost world, a world as ordinary then as it may seem extraordinary to us. -- John Sperling The Guardian fascinating piece of historical detective work...it is probably the best Old Shanghai book I have read...superb -- Anton Graham China Economic Review Empire Made Me is a fascinating and intimate portrait of Shanghai at its apex. Asian Review of Books A work of dedicated and original scholarship... What emerges is the portrait of a singular and heroic man. -- John Carey Sunday Times, London Bickers' detailed recovery of an obscure and 'unimportant' policeman's life gives a valuable street-level view of a complex scene. -- Robin Blake Financial Times, London One of the most intriguing true-life books of the year. -- David Wilson South China Morning Post A superb account. -- Giles Foden Conde Nast Traveler (UK) Bickers guides us deftly through a wealth of local archives...and personal interviews to fashion a richly layered social history of Shanghai's foreign police. -- Carolyn Wakeman China Review International Spring 2004 Bickers brings this world of Britain overseas alive in this fascinating study. This book is both a 'good read' and a solid history. -- Parks M. Coble, University of Nebraska International History Review XXVII. 1:March 2005 Bickers had done a wonderful job of showing the human face of empire, and bravely, through a distinctively unattractive personality. -- Philippa Levine American Historical Review 10/1/05 A breathtaking transportation to an utterly fascinating time, place, and individual history. -- Karen Fang Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 6:1 Robert Bickers has written a book providing a new perspective on empire. -- Marcia R. Ristaino Journal of World History 6/1/2006
Product Description
Richard Maurice Tinkler was an ordinary man in an extraordinary time and place. This riveting "biography of a nobody" offers a rare glimpse of imperialism and the making of modern China seen from the perspective of a working-class Englishman enforcing the order of everyday life on the streets of Shanghai. Culled from Tinkler's many personal letters, Empire Made Me meticulously documents his astonishingly revealing life in the service of the British Empire between 1919 and 1939, one of hundreds of young men who joined the Shanghai Municipal Police. Responsible for maintaining order in Shanghai's International Settlement, the SMP expanded and enforced British dominion in China's most important political, commercial, and cultural center. Tinkler would have remained just another anonymous and forgotten colonial policeman were it not for his unexpected death, at the hands of Japanese marines and an incompetent local doctor, in June 1939. His suspicious death created a noisy diplomatic incident that was picked up by journalists and splashed across the front pages of Britain's newspapers. Many of Tinkler's personal letters survived, and they describe his personal life in unusually vivid detail, including his relationships, his knowing masculinity, his travels, and his bitter meditations on his lowly position in a powerful but waning empire. Robert Bickers absorbing biography uses Tinkler's letters as well as extensive archival research to tell the story of this man's everyday life and violent decline in a colonial world -- a story that offers an uncommonly candid history of twentieth-century imperialism.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
Empire is with us, in our waking lives, and in our dreams and nightmares. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Empire is with us, in our waking lives, and in our dreams and nightmares. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ode to the Imperial Everyman, Nov 4 2004
By James Windle "jimbo" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (Hardcover)
This is brilliant theatre of the absurd. It captures the pathos of the imperial everyman Maurice Tinkler toiling away for a small pay at the distant edge of empire - and his decline which mirrors and echoes the decline of the British Empire in the far east in the 1930's - faced by the surge of Asian nationalisms.Maurice Tinkler is falling apart, emotionaly, mentaly, spiritualy and physicaly - and so is the Brittish Empire which he loves and to which he has devoted his life.
He died an imperial martyr - it was the only way he wished to go.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent history of pre-world war two Shanghai, Jun 24 2010
By Mr. Leong Wai Hong - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (Hardcover)
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.
2 of 9 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Strickly for historians, Mar 16 2007
By John Glines - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Empire Made Me (Paperback)
Lots of history here but at the expense of a good story. I wish it had been a biography of Tinkler, allowing us to infer more about Shanghai and the British Empire at that time rather than inundating us with masses facts. Well, maybe it got better as it went along, but I quite half way through.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
