Chronicling Westerners in Nineteenth-Century East Asia: Lives, Linkages, and Imperial Connections

This book explores the lives of Westerners in Japanese and Chinese treaty ports, British colonies, and the 19th-century maritime world by examining personal letters, diplomatic dispatches, business records, and academic papers. It reveals the challenges and pace of daily life in these regions, emphasizing the connections between Westerners and the broader histories of the "openings of China and Japan."

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This captivating book delves into the intimate, captivating, and largely untold stories of Western lives and livelihoods in Japanese and Chinese treaty ports, as well as in the British colonies of Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, during the 19th century. It achieves this by examining how Westerners chronicled their overseas experiences in personal letters, diplomatic dispatches, business records, and academic papers. By leveraging these rich but often overlooked sources, Chronicling Westerners in Nineteenth-Century East Asia offers fresh perspectives on the pace and complexities of daily life, particularly in the Japanese treaty ports of Nagasaki and Yokohama, as well as in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The volume emphasizes the interconnectedness of its subjects, as Westerners' lives overlapped and they traversed between Japanese and Chinese port cities. Contributors from the USA, Japan, the UK, New Zealand, and Switzerland shed light on the diverse commercial, maritime, and imperial connections that intertwined with Westerners in East Asia, revealing surprising linkages that shaped colonial development in Australia and New Zealand. Through a comprehensive exploration of Westerners' accounts of their lives, the book re-examines broader histories of the so-called "openings of China and Japan in the 1850s and 1860s," as well as how Westerners sought to make sense of these events and position themselves within them.

Furthermore, the volume considers how flows of people, capital, commerce, and communications not only traversed the histories of distinct treaty ports in Japan and China but also had far-reaching implications for empire and exchange beyond East Asia, including Australia, New Zealand, and the 19th-century maritime world. This insightful work provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complex and multifaceted interactions between the West and East in the 19th century, shedding light on the lives and experiences of Westerners in a previously under-explored region.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350238930