The Taipans Hong Kong's Merchant Princes

by Crisswell, Colin N.

• ISBN13: 9780195853735
• ISBN10: 0195853733
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-10-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Taipans is a popular account of Hong Kong's merchant princes from the origins of the first trading houses in eighteenth-century Canton and Macau to the beginning of the First World War. The early taipans, hard-headed business men from Britain, the USA, and India, built up immense fortunes from the opium trade. In the 1830s a single company, Jardine & Matheson, controlled one-third of China's foreign trade. In later years some of the original trading houses diversified successfully while others crashed into bankruptcy. At the same time a class of Chinese middlemen and merchants grew up, establishing the foundations of Hong Kong's influential Chinese business class. First published in 1981, The Taipans is reissued with a completely new final chapter on Hong Kong's contemporary taipans.

Author Biography

Colin N. Crisswell is the Deputy Principal of an international secondary school in Hong Kong, and has written numerous books and articles on Asian history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Plates	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
A Most Gentlemanlike Speculation	p. 9
Early Days in Canton	p. 11
The Princely Hong and the End of the Canton System	p. 24
Between the Two Wars	p. 69
Anglo-Chinese Relations	p. 71
Trade with China	p. 79
Hong Kong Affairs	p. 88
Hong Kong Business and Social Life	p. 97
Old and New China Hands	p. 117
The Old China Hands	p. 119
The Sassoons	p. 135
Banking	p. 143
Taikoo	p. 149
Hong Kong--the Old Order Changeth	p. 167
Civic Affairs	p. 169
Business and Social Affairs	p. 186
Epilogue	p. 218
Select Bibliography	p. 234
Index	p. 237
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