This book explores imperial power and the transnational encounters of shipowners and merchants in the South China Sea from 1840 to 1930. With British Hong Kong and French Indochina on its northern and western shores, the ‘Asian Mediterranean’ was for almost a century a crucible of power and an axis of economic struggle for coastal shipping companies from various nations. Merchant steamers shipped cargoes and passengers between ports of the region. Hong Kong, the global port city, and the colonial ports of Saigon and Haiphong developed into major hubs for the flow of goods and people, while Guangzhouwan survived as an almost forgotten outpost of Indochina. While previous research in this field has largely remained within the confines of colonial history, this book uses the examples of French and German companies operating in the South China Sea to demonstrate the extent to which transnational actors and business networks interacted with imperial power and the process of globalisation.

This book attempts to explain this aspect of Yüan Shih-k'ai's political power by analysing the relationship between him and Sir John Newell Jordan, British minister at Peking from 1906 to 1920.

This study of Albert Ballin, a powerful member of the banking and commercial elite in Imperial Germany and manager of the Hamburg-American Line from 1899-1918, illuminates the political and social structure of the aristocracy and the upper middle class in the German Empire. Originally published in 1967. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This study of World War I diplomacy concerning China covers in detail the outbreak of the war in the Far East; China's attempt to join the allies in 1915; the secret agreements during 1917 between Japan and Great Britain, France, Italy, and Russia; and later negotiations relative to China's entry into the war.

This book presents a collection of annotated English translations of German diplomatic documents—including telegrams, dispatches and reports—sent to the Foreign Office in Berlin and the German Ambassador in Hankou, China, by German diplomatic officials in Nanjing, and detailing Japanese atrocities and the conditions in and around Nanjing during the early months of 1938. The author visited the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) and the German Foreign Ministry Archives (Auswärtiges Amt Archiv) in Berlin, where these documents are currently archived, in 2008, 2016, and 2017 to locate and retrieve them. These diplomatic documents are of significant value in that they provide both detailed information and wide coverage, from different locations and on various topics. Further, the information offered is unique in a number of ways. First, the events were recorded from the perspective of Germans, citizens of a country that was a close ally of Japan, and second, these documents are not included in any other source. As such, these archival primary sources represent an invaluable addition to the research literature on the Nanjing Massacre and will undoubtedly benefit researchers and scholars for generations to come.