$35.00
FREE Returns
Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Details
Want it faster? The Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app.
$$35.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$35.00
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Paul French
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao Hardcover – May 1, 2009

by Paul French (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$35.00","priceAmount":35.00,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"35","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"00","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Ipj7dSEIopNFfnSp7Ng8gF79J779wOg3jD9Ed3ChPIHT9f4ruFLsEiBXMG2QX0LwSggWesEeiFOZBKElamvTgQ20m%2BpbBwY01DxpmQUdmr1vk9trCZti%2Fw01nwc783uzP42pysbCOWo%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The convulsive history of foreign journalists in China starts with the newspapers printed in the European Factories of Canton in the 1820s and ends with the Communist revolution in 1949. It also starts with a duel between two editors over the China’s future and ends with a fistfight in Shanghai over the revolution. The men and women of the foreign press experienced China’s history and development; its convulsions and upheavals; revolutions and wars. They had front row seats at every major twist and turn in China’s fortunes. They reported on the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion; saw the Summer Palace burn; endured the Boxer Rebellion; witnessed the Qing Dynasty’s death, the birth of a Nationalist China and its struggle for survival against rampant warlordism. They followed the rise of the Communists, total war and then revolution. When the Unequal Treaties were signed, the foreign press were there; when foreign troops occupied and looted Beijing in 1900 they were present too; they saw the Republic born in 1911 and an increasingly politically strident China assert itself on May Fourth 1919. Foreign journalists stood in the streets witnessing the blood letting of the First Shanghai War in 1932 and then were blown of their feet by the bombing of the Second Shanghai War in 1937. They tracked Japanese aggression from the annexation of Manchuria, the fall of Shanghai and the Rape of Nanjing through to the assault on the Nationalist wartime capital of Chongqing as they cowered in the same bomb shelters as everybody else. They witnessed the fratricidal Civil War, the flight of Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan and the early days of the People’s Republic. The old China press corps were the witnesses and the primary interpreters to millions globally of the history of modern China and they were themselves a cast of fascinating characters. Like journalists everywhere they took sides, they brought their own assumptions and prejudices to China along with their hopes, dreams and fears. They weren’t infallible; they got the story completely wrong as often as they got it partially right. They were a mixed bunch―from long timers such as George ‘Morrison of Peking’; glamorous journalist-sojourners such as Peter Fleming and Emily Hahn; and reporter-tourists such as Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn along with numerous less celebrated, but no less interesting, members of the old China press corps. A fair few were drunks, philanderers and frauds; more than one was a spy―they changed sides, they lost their impartiality, they displayed bias and a few were downright scoundrels and liars. But most did their job ably and professionally, some passionately and a select few with rare flair and touches of genius.
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    312 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Hong Kong University Press
  4. Publication date
    May 1, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9622099823
  7. ISBN-13
    978-9622099821
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Opium-addict, concubine, missionary, spy―Paul French brings to life the larger-than-life personalities of a bygone China foreign press corps. Reading Through the Looking Glass makes me wish I’d become an old China hand a century earlier.” ―Melinda Liu, w

“Through the Looking Glass is wonderful and layered. On one level, it is a delightful insight into the antics of the foreign press corps in an exotic land―a bit like Scoop, but true. On another, it is a historical treasure trove; we learn how Hemingway an

“Enthralling. With a fascinating cast of characters and a dramatic narrative of events, this book provides a new window on to this tumultuous period of Chinese history as well as showing how journalism really works on the ground, for good or ill.” ―Jonath

“Paul French’s latest publication is a fascinating hybrid of a book. It's part wonderfully useful reference tool (detailing who covered China when for which newspaper), part irreverent and gossipy behind the scenes look at journalism during an eventful pe

From the Back Cover

Media / Journalism / China Studies

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hong Kong University Press; Illustrated edition (May 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 312 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9622099823
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9622099821
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.37 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Paul French

Paul French

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Born and currently based in London, Paul French lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. After a career as a widely published analyst and commentator on China he is now a full-time author, focusing on China and Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. His next title for summer 2024 is a revelaing biography of the year Wallis Spencer, later the Duchess of Windsor spent in China in the mid-1920s - Her Lotus Year (St. Martin's Press - US/Elliot & Thompson - UK).

His true crime book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times Bestseller, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Mystery Writers’ of America ‘Edgar’ award winner for Best Fact Crime, and a Crime Writers’ Association (UK) ‘Dagger’ award for non-fiction. His Kirkus-starred book City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir focuses on the dancehalls, casinos and cabarets of wartime Shanghai. Both Midnight in Peking and City of Devils are being adapted for film and television.

French is also a regular contributor and book reviewer for various publications including The South China Morning Post, Financial Times Weekend, Mekong Review, CNN, The China Project, Ponto Final (Macao), and Crime Reads. He occasionally works in audio drama with productions including Peking Noir for BBC Radio 3, Death at the Airport: The Plot Against Kim Jong-nam for BBC Radio 4, and the twelve-part Audible Original, Murders of Old China.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Prospector
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfied customer.
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2019
Verified Purchase
I am very satisfied with every aspect of this purchase.
Helpful
 Report
TSD Cali
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
Everything was great....the seller...the speed...and of course Paul French.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Grant A Thompson
4.0 out of 5 stars A good book, entertaining reading - excellent introduction to complex topic of foreign correspondents in China
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2012
Verified Purchase
Paul French's book has an excellent concept as a one-volume historical narrative of the immense subject of the foreign journalists who worked in China from the Opium Wars to the time of Mao. Clearly French knows a lot about China in general and this specialised subject in particular. He has researched the subject at length in many sources: his end notes and bibliography are good. The book is entertaining, interesting and insightful about a colourful swathe of journalistic personalities and their impact in Chinese politics and society, and in global perception of China through several periods. Colourful characters were so common among these journalists that many are full-length individual biographical subjects in their own right. Probably the most extraordinary of all: Emily Hahn 1905-1997 of The New Yorker. She was one of the most versatile, prolific and risk-taking authors of the 20th century. Hahn lived for six years in Shanghai's red light district, smoked opium, kept a largely uncontrollable pet gibbon she called Mr Mills, and variously "lived in sin" with the noted Shanghai poet/publisher Shao Xunmei 邵洵美 1906-1968 and the British intelligence officer and important author/scholar in his own right, Charles Boxer 1904-2000, who she eventually married after bearing him a daughter out of wedlock.

Very reasonably, French at the beginning of his book explains that he has not attempted a complete directory of the foreign press corps in China. As this would be probably impossible and likely dreary, '...the characters represented in this book represent a selection of the major figures and those who piqued my interest for one reason or another.' Unsurprisingly, the author tends to view the experiences and attitudes of the imperialist generation of China correspondents, like G.E. Morrison 1862-1920 and H.G.W. Woodhead 1883-1959, somewhat superficially through the prism of current rather than contemporary values. French really gets into his stride, and his capacity to weave a coherent and engaging narrative history from many complex threads becomes most compelling with his telling of the story of the large international press corps that covered China through the 1930s and '40s.

Given this demonstrated capacity to master complexity, it is surprising and disappointing to see simple errors which good research and editing should have eliminated.

Surprising errors which have leapt off the page (or, more accurately, the Kindle screen) at me include:

1. French refers to Bertram Lenox Simpson's memoir of the Siege of the Legations during the Boxer uprising in 1900 - 'Indiscreet Letters From Peking', under his pseudonym B. L. Putnam Weale - as "a 1921 book". In fact, it was first published in 1907.

2. French refers to the co-founder of the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong as Arthur Cunningham. He was Alfred Cunningham (1870-1918).

3. French says the Peking Post's editor, Gilbert Reid, was the only American wounded in the Siege of the Legations. This overlooks the wounding of Major John Twiggs Myers, who commanded the US Marine Corps detachment at the American Legation and was famously in the thick of fighting, and numerous other American casualties. For example, the most up-to-date casualty breakdown by nationality I can immediately find shows 7 American killed, 9 wounded by the end of July - with two more weeks left in the siege. ('The Siege of the Peking Legations: A Diary' by Lancelot Giles, ed. L. R. Marchant, University of Western Australia Press, 1970).

4. Reference in chapter 8 to "writing flare".

5. Reference in chapter 9 to Evans Fordyce Carlson, an ex-US Marine turned correspondent, having been "in the army". The US Marine Corps is a naval force as are most marines of any nation, part of the United States Navy, not the US Army.

Such obvious simple errors as these are minor irritations that somewhat undermine confidence in the historical accuracy of the book, and in assertions or analysis of facts in which the reader may not be expert. This is a pity because the overall concept and the scope of source material used are excellent, and the book is a good read. Paul French and his publishers need to be more rigorous in editing out these and presumably other as yet undetected errors in their next edition. Highly recommended subject to these cautions. The Kindle edition is well formatted and easy to read and use for reference.
12 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

MX
5.0 out of 5 stars You will admire journalism’s power and journalists’ work after reading this book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2024
Verified Purchase
I read this book on kindle. I tested several times in reading, for the ending of each life. Thanks Paul French, you have recorded the records of people in the turning of modern China- so many times.
Report