The Taipans: Hong Kong's Merchant Princes (Oxford Paperbacks) - Softcover

Crisswell, Colin N.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195853733 ISBN 13: 9780195853735

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1991

Synopsis

The Taipans is a popular account of Hong Kong's merchant princes from the origins of the first trading houses in eighteenth-century Canton and Macau to the beginning of the First World War. The early taipans, hard-headed business men from Britain, the USA, and India, built up immense fortunes from the opium trade. In the 1830s a single company, Jardine & Matheson, controlled one-third of China's foreign trade. In later years some of the original trading houses diversified successfully while others crashed into bankruptcy. At the same time a class of Chinese middlemen and merchants grew up, establishing the foundations of Hong Kong's influential Chinese business class. First published in 1981, The Taipans is reissued with a completely new final chapter on Hong Kong's contemporary taipans.

About this title

About the Author:

Colin N. Crisswell, Deputy Principal, King George V School, Hong Kong.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0195853733
• ISBN 13: 9780195853735
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 292