For more than a century Blue Funnel ships, managed from Liverpool by Alfred Holt and Company, held a unique place in Britain's shipping industry. Starting as pioneers of cargo liners between Liverpool and the Far East in 1866, the Company maintained a fine reputation built on its vessels, crews, shore staff, and management. This book traces the origins and evolution of the Line, charting its history through both world wars, its experiences in the great depression of the 1930s, and its vigorous response to the challenge of containerisation in the 1960s. Integrated into the text are discussions of the current roles of agencies and conferences, the singular management structure, and assessments of the parts played by key individuals.

"David Abulafia's new book guides readers along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans-the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian-which together comprise the majority of the earth's water and cover over half of its surface. Over time, as passage through them gradually extended and expanded, linking first islands and then continents, maritime networks developed, evolving from local exploration to lines of regional communication and commerce and eventually to major arteries. These waterways carried goods, plants, livestock, and of course people-free and enslaved-across vast expanses, transforming and ultimately linking irrevocably the economies and cultures of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas"--

This text explores the patterns of corporate growth, organizational change, and entrepreneurial succession within Britain's shipping industry between 1870 and 1914 when the industry dominated the trade routes of the world. It analyzes how one of Britain's major service industries retained its international competitiveness at a time when many of the older staple sectors lost their comparative advantages and when numerous firms in the new industries failed to develop strong capabilities.

Constituting an impressive account of key themes in the international history of East Asia from 1900 to 1968, this book is an important contribution to the interpretive study of this crucial period of history. It offers economic, political and strategic perspectives and with a particular focus on Anglo-Japanese relations.

Finalist for the 2019 Jazz Journalists Association Book of the Year About Jazz, Jazz Awards for Journalism "Is there jazz in China?" This is the question that sent author Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China. Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique, face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters, expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a democratic form of music in a Communist state.

From its origins in Liverpool in 1816, one unusual British firm has threaded a way through two centuries that have seen tumultuous events and epochal transformations in technologies and societies. John Swire & Sons, a small trading company that began by importing dyes, cotton and apples from the Americas, now directs a highly diversified group of interests operating across the globe but with a core focus on Asia. From 1866 its fate was intertwined with developments in China, with the story of steam, and later of flight, and with the movements of people and of goods that made the modern world. China Bound charts the story of the firm, its family owners and staff, its operations, its successes and its disasters, as it endured wars, uprisings and revolutions, the rise and fall of empires - China's, Britain's, Japan's – and the twists and turns of the global economy. This is the story of a business that reshaped Hong Kong, developed Cathay Pacific Airways, dominated China's pre-Second World War shipping industry, and helped pioneer containerization. Robert Bickers' remarkable new book is the history of a business, and of its worlds, of modern China, Britain, and of the globalization that entangled them, of compradors, ship-owners, and seamen, sugar travellers, tea-tasters, and stuff merchants, revolutionaries, pirates and Taipans. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in global commerce, China Bound provides an intimate history that helps explain the shape of Asia today.

Two hundred years after Singapore’s foundation by Stamford Raffles in 1819, this book reflects on the historical development of the city, putting forward much new research and new thinking. It discusses Singapore’s emergence as a regional economic hub, explores its strategic importance and considers its place in the development of the British Empire. Subjects covered include the city’s initial role as a strategic centre to limit the resurgence of Dutch power in Southeast Asia after the Napoleonic Wars, the impact of the Japanese occupation, and the reasons for Singapore’s exit from the Malaysian Federation in 1965. The book concludes by examining how Singapore’s history is commemorated at present, reinforcing the image of the city as prosperous, peaceful and forward looking, and draws out the lessons which history can provide concerning the city’s likely future development.