Lion Rock

A definitive new history of Hong Kong.

Lion Rock is the epic story of Asia's global city and its people, sitting on the edge of China yet under British jurisdiction, spanning both empires and belonging to neither, growing an economy at a furious pace and developing its own unique identity. It is also the tragedy of how a vibrant financial and cultural hub was just as swiftly wrecked by the Chinese authorities who lost patience with free expression and the democratic process after the colony was ceded back.

This story has never been more timely, and never been more contested. Hong Kong needs a new history. With a few exceptions, books about it have either been insular, focused on the city itself and its people, or they have placed it largely in the context of the twists and turns of the British relationship with China. Lion Rock will build on such work, but also on the story of Hong Kong's impact on China itself, and the ways it revolutionized China's politics, society and economy, and the literature of China's diaspora, on the 'Cantonese Pacific' - the ebb and flow of migrants and sojourners to north and south America and the Antipodes - and of the experiences of Hong Kong's peoples more widely overseas. Seven and a half million people live in Hong Kong today, but many more Hong Kongers now live across the world. Their story is Hong Kong's story too.