John M. Carroll is professor of history at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong and A Concise History of Hong Kong.

• Acknowledgments Introduction Notes Chapter 1 The Place, the System, and the People The “Entrance of Pandemonium” A “Perfect System” Coping with the “Intolerable Restrictions” “Various Petty Collisions” Accommodation and Collaboration in the Contact Zone “An Extraordinary Jargon” “Two Living Streams or Tides of Human Beings” Notes Chapter 2 Communities and Personalities Through American Eyes Remaining in Canton George Thomas Staunton’s Life in China “Some Real Geniuses in Wit, Science, and Art” “Good Works” “Useful Knowledge” Notes Chapter 3 Life and Work The “Ungallant” Exclusion “Serious Illnesses in This Country” Confinement and Routine “United Together in a Kind of Brotherhood” “The Harmony of Our Little Society” Friendships Staying On Notes Chapter 4 Outlets Dinners and Parties The Gardens at Fa-ti Rowing and Regattas “Turning Out” to Macao In the Storm Notes Chapter 5 Commemorations and Institutions “The Nautical Oracle of the World” The British Chamber of Commerce The Parsis The Canton General Chamber of Commerce Community through Grievances Grievances, Character, and Conduct Notes Chapter 6 Factories, Fear, and Fire Combustible Canton The Great Fire of 1822 Frustration and Helplessness Fire and “the Chinese Character” Fire as Opportunity (or Not) Fire and Grievances Notes Chapter 7 Robert Morrison’s Life in China With the Americans With the East India Company The Company and Morrison’s Dictionaries Morrison and the Press Change and Uncertainty The Superintendent of Trade and the Napier Mission “A Loyal and Industrious Son” Notes Chapter 8 Dying in China “Gonged to Death” “He Carried to the Grave the Regrets of All” “A Mysterious Secret” Death and the British in China Notes Epilogue: Canton and Beyond Notes Bibliography Index

On the basis of fine research, Carroll has presented a virtual cyclorama of the British community in Canton during the decades prior to the Opium War. He has successfully brought together many aspects of that community’s life hitherto dealt with most often as separate subjects.