Local Rule

The publication of this book marks the fifteenth anniversary of the outbreak of SARS epidemic in Hong Kong in 2003. This documentary study, originating as a research project a year after the epidemic, is a comprehensive attempt to examine the development of public health in Hong Kong from 1841 to the early 1990s. It covers the periods of prewar colonial rule, Japanese occupation, postwar reconstruction and growth, and the beginning of decolonisation. It analyses political, social, economic, and cultural factors, including the intersection of colonial priorities and indigenous agency and practices that affected disease outbreaks and development, government and local responses, advances in technology related to health and medicine, as well as the emergence of health agencies and institutions. The historical documents, selected from government archives, personal papers, and special collections, are invaluable source materials for the critical evaluation of such developments. The book prov

BY 1945, EVERYWHERE ONE LOOKED IN THE FAR EAST THE BRITISH EMPIRE WAS BEING OPENLY QUESTIONED OR WAS FAILING OUTRIGHT. YET IN THE PREVIOUS CENTURY, THE BRITISH HAD BEEN THE PRE-EMINENT IMPERIAL POWER FROM WEIHAIWEI TO NORTH BORNEO. READING COLONIES: PROPERTY AND CONTROL OF THE BRITISH FAR EAST INVESTIGATES HOW THE BRITISH HELD ON FOR SO LONG. RENT CONTROL LEGISLATION, AND OTHER MEASURES OF PROPERTY LAW SUCH AS LAND IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES, ARE NOMINATED AS KEY TOOLS USED TO FRUSTRATE DECOLONIZATION IN MOST EASTERN COLONIES. BRITISH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIONS TRIED LONG AND HARD TO INHIBIT THE DIALECTICAL DISCORD BETWEEN THEIR COLONIAL HIERARCHISM AND LOCAL FORMS OF NATIONALISM WITH THE PROMPTS AND PLAUDITS OF PROPERTY POLICY. IN CASES WHERE INDIGENOUS LANDLORDISM MASQUERADED AS PATRIOTISM, INDEPENDENCE CAME QUICKLY (CEYLON AND BURMA). WHERE PUBLIC HOUSING ESTABLISHED ITSELF AS A KEY POST-WAR PLANK OF SOCIAL POLICY, FREEDOM FROM BRITISH RULE WAS A MORE GRADUAL AFFAIR (BRITISH MALAYA