Perhaps at no time in the history of East-West relations was the conflict more poignant and more dramatic than during the century that began in 1860. From that time onward, the West came knocking, with increasingly aggressive force, on the doors of China. Both in that ancient land and in Japan, profound changes took place as a direct result of Western intervention, and it may be said with truth that many of the factors operative in East-West relations even today are the result of that turbulent century of history.
FROM BONDAGE TO LIBERATION unfolds in fine detail the events of those crucial years, discusses the policies of the governments and their servants who were involved, and attempts brief portraits of most of those intimately concerned. The eminently readable text is supplemented by the lavish use of illustrations cartoons, drawings and paintings from sources contemporary with the events described, and also photographs, from the rime when the camera was first used in the East in the early 1870s. There are twenty two-colour maps, an extensive list of romanized Chinese names and terms with corresponding characters, and a glossary of all the Japanese terms used.
Although primarily written with the Hong Kong Certificate of Education History Examination Syllabus in mind, the book will also lx- found suitable for sixth-form studies. The general reader of East and West alike, will find in it an informative and captivating story.
Nigel Cameron has been living and travelling in Asia, including many parts of China, since 1955. He is the author of many successful books on the Orient. Among them are: The Chinese Smile, about China eight years after the revolution; Peking: A Tale of three cities, an illustrated history of the capital city; Barbarians and Mandarins, dealing will) Sino-Western relations from earliest limes until the present; and China Today, an account of the situation after almost a quarter of a century of Communist