德國新浪潮名導韋納荷索放下導演筒，以書寫刻畫藏身盧邦島叢林多年，不願相信二戰已然結束的日軍小野田寬郎的無數個日子。從與同袍死守到僅剩自己頑抗，藉小野田生前受荷索專訪的紀錄，半重現半想像地描繪出被自己禁錮於這場荒誕幻夢中的年輕軍人，叢林裡的29年長夜。Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs... There is only one rule:You are forbidden to die by your own hand.In the event of your capture by the enemy, you are to give them all the misleading information you can.In 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer. So began Onoda's long campaign, during which he became fluent in the hidden language of the jungle. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades - until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making. The Twilight World im
乘風破浪來到中國的英國商人如何參與十九世紀帝國衝突的零和遊戲作者使用未曾與世人見面的太古集團檔案，為這間公司撰寫它度過動蕩不安中國近代史兩百年的迷人故事。民族崛起，帝國衰落，而太古集團這艘船航行穿越風暴。這是英國史和中國史一流史家的上乘之作。──史蒂芬．普拉特（Stephen R. Platt），美國阿姆赫斯特麻塞諸塞大學歷史系教授，著有《帝國暮色》（Imperial Twilight）畢可思把英國在中國的歷史寫得無可匹敵。在《綁定中國》，他講述一段橫跨兩百年動蕩歷史的非凡故事，關於一個來自利物浦的家族企業如何把自己變成亞洲的一部分。這是家庭的故事，帝國的故事，也是關係網的故事。──香港大學歷史系教授高馬可（John M. Carroll），著有《帝國夾縫中的香港》（Edge of Empires Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong）這是亞洲其中一間重要英國公司的故事。但這個故事的意義遠不止於此——它包羅萬象的內容包含關於帝國如何形成，在鼎盛時期運作，然後被迫重塑自身。畢可思使用各式素材，其中許多是學者們從未見過的史料，他講述太古在亞洲創造新的貿易路線和商業關係，還有亞洲接著也被帝國商業塑造，然後面對戰爭和一九四九年中國共產主義革命的影響。這是一部強而有力又重要的歷史，將在英國與亞洲關係走上全新且不可預測的變化之際留下印記，其敘事風格和活力就連最鋌而走險的大班都會滿意。──芮納．米德（Rana Mitter），著有《中國的抗日戰爭，1937-1945》（China’s War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival） 一個西方家族商行——也是擁有諸多商行的家族——如何在亞洲生存並蓬勃發展兩個多世紀？一間開路先鋒般的私人企業如何巡航穿越現代中國的戰爭、革命和改革開放？畢可斯把這個太古集團的故事講得精彩絕倫。這本書有很多身分：這是一本讀起來像小說的權威商業史。這是一部帝國衝突與競爭的大戲。這是關於商業創造我們今天生活的現代世界及其機構的故事。從商業的角度來看，這是一段中國和香港的迷人歷史。這本書適合研究現代中國及其外交關係的讀者，以及今天在中國做生意的人。這段歷史有很多教訓值得今人汲取。──柯偉林（William C. Kirby），哈佛大
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE When Britain launched its first war on China in 1839, pushed into hostilities by profiteering drug merchants and free-trade interests, it sealed the fate
The definitive history of the Opium War--a vivid narrative of the earliest Western efforts to open China to trade and the resulting war that ensured the decline of imperial China.When Britain declared
As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country's last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War."T
The Russian Empire was among the most mysterious of the world’s great powers, profoundly torn between a rural population living almost medieval lives and industrial and social change in the cities. Th
The great filmmaker, Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible true story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to defend a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War Two. In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and would meet many times, talking for hours and together unraveling the story of Onoda's long war. At the end of 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. Defend the territory with guerilla tactics at all costs. There is only one rule: you are forbidden to die b
Prompted by his work translating and editing Witte's (1849-1915) memoirs, Harcave (emeritus history, State U. of New York-Binghamton) offers a biography of the finance minister and later premier of Ru
British academic and diplomat Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874–1938) published Twilight in the Forbidden City in 1934. The work is a memoir of Johnston's time in Beijing between 1919 and 1924, at the court of the Qing Dynasty, where he served as tutor to Aisin-Gioro Puyi (1906–1967), last emperor of China. Johnston was one of only two foreigners who were permitted to enter the imperial palace, and so his account provides a unique Western perspective on the epochal events of the period. The work has a preface by the emperor Puyi and includes detailed descriptions of palace rituals, including Puyi's wedding ceremony; translations of key documents; Johnston's perspective on the revolution of 1911 and the 1917 restoration; his observations on Chinese society as a whole; and eye-witness accounts of the political intrigues of the palace. The memoir was dramatised in Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematic masterpiece, The Last Emperor.
As the British-born Tutor to the Dragon Emperor, Johnston was the only foreigner in history to be allowed inside the inner court of the Qing Dynasty. Johnston carried high imperial titles and lived in
Osprey's Campaign title for the Zulu War (1879). In the late 1870s the British Imperial administration in the Cape colony in southern Africa began to view the Zulu kingdom as a challenge to their auth
The first decade of the twentieth century was the Ottoman Empire's 'imperial twilight'. As the Empire fell away, the beginnings of a young and radical Turkish nationalism took root in Anatolia. The su
