Hong Kong

Fülszöveg

HONGKDNG
By Robert Elegant
and the Editors of Time-Life Books
Photographs by Brian Brake
The miracle of Hong Kong is that it exists at all. On a small rocky but ravishingly beautiful portion of the coast of mainland China, the cllv defies both geography and politics. Founded in the early 19th century by Britons engaged in the opium trade. Hong Kong has never been veiy popular with the rulers of the vast Chinese nation. Yet today the crowded, gleaming metropolis is a paragon of commercial vigour. In this book, Robert Elegant's 25 years as a Hong Kong correspondent for
The Author
Robert Elegant was a bureau ctiief in Hong Kong for both the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek He has written many boolts about China, including China's Red Masters and the novel Dynasty.
The Photogiapher
Brian Brake left Hong Kong in 1976 to return to his native New Zealand. A member of Magnum, his work has been published in many magazines -and exhibited at the New York Museum of Modem Art.
American... Tovább

Fülszöveg

HONGKDNG
By Robert Elegant
and the Editors of Time-Life Books
Photographs by Brian Brake
The miracle of Hong Kong is that it exists at all. On a small rocky but ravishingly beautiful portion of the coast of mainland China, the cllv defies both geography and politics. Founded in the early 19th century by Britons engaged in the opium trade. Hong Kong has never been veiy popular with the rulers of the vast Chinese nation. Yet today the crowded, gleaming metropolis is a paragon of commercial vigour. In this book, Robert Elegant's 25 years as a Hong Kong correspondent for
The Author
Robert Elegant was a bureau ctiief in Hong Kong for both the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek He has written many boolts about China, including China's Red Masters and the novel Dynasty.
The Photogiapher
Brian Brake left Hong Kong in 1976 to return to his native New Zealand. A member of Magnum, his work has been published in many magazines -and exhibited at the New York Museum of Modem Art.
American publications and his knowledge of the Chinese language enable him to evoke the essence of the Colony's unique mixture of cultures. He examines Hong Kong's corrupted past and he explores its paradoxical present where incredible enterprise exists side-by-side with ancient beliefs and customs. A highlight is the chapter which describes in wondrous detail the epicurean delights available in the city's thousands of restaurants. Many actual Hong Kong characters—its fortune-tellers, boat-dwellers, millionaire tycoons, and China-watchers—are brought into vivid focus. Finally, he explains the complicated relationship that permits the communist regime in Peking to tolerate—and profit from—this bastion of capitalism. Throughout, Brian Brake's photographs document the fascinating, often bizarre details of a singular city.
Spend time with us on the boulevards, the byways and behind the facades of THE GREAT CITIES
The Great Cities, the really great ones, have an importance we often take for granted.
Yet what makes them the most sophisticated of human units? How have they become more than national centres, with an influence independent of time and space? Why is their appeal so strong that they evoke an immediate response even from people who've never visited them? And when does a city really become great -for only a limited number possess the dynamic qualities required?
We will tell you. We will take you behind the fronts. Explain the ceremonies and monuments. Introduce you to the inhabitants, their history and their ways. And tell you things about these places that you will find surprising.
Through volumes in THE GREAT CITIES series, we invite you. to join us on the boulevards and byways of the most absorbing, baffling and powerful places on earth. Places that have determined the course of history, religion, political science, art, literature and fashion. And continue to do so. -
For the great cities are as varied and complex, as mysterious and intriguing as the people who build them. They are places that influence our forms of govemment, our economic systems, our social structure and our philosophies. They are places where our idiosyncracies, our follies and our great achievements are enacted.
Through the words of distinguished and well informed authors; through the pictures of leading photographers, you will see the great cities not only as bricks and mortar, streets and monuments • but as dynamic market places, producers of goods and ideas. And as centres of power and great events.
Starting with each city as it stands today, we will take you way beyond instant impressions and behind the facades to reveal the essence of the place; objectively explain why it is the way it is; and take you as far back into the past as is necessary to interpret the present. Vissza