Skip to content
  • Seminars
  • Seminars 2022
  • Seminars 2023
  • Upcoming events

Book Talk Series

Book talk with Florence Mok on her new book Covert colonialism: Governance, surveillance and political culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966-97.

Manchester University Press (2023)

Book Abstract

This book fills the long-standing void in the existing scholarship by constructing an empirical study of colonial governance and political culture in Hong Kong from 1966 to 1997. Using under-exploited archival and unofficial data in London and Hong Kong, it overcomes the limitations in the existing literature which has been written mainly by political scientists and sociologists, and has been primarily theoretically driven. It addresses a highly contested and timely agenda, one in which colonial historians have made major interventions: the nature of colonial governance and autonomy of the colonial polity. This book focusing on colonialism and the Chinese society in Hong Kong in a pivotal period will generate meaningful discussions and heated debates on comparisons between ‘colonialism’ in different space and time: between Hong Kong and other former British colonies; and between colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong.

Moderator: Prof. Ray Yep, Research Director of the Centre for the Study of Hong Kong History

Dr. Florence Mok is a Nanyang Assistant Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is a historian of colonial Hong Kong and modern China, with an interest in environmental history, the Cold War and state-society relations. She completed her PhD in History at the University of York in 2019. Her doctoral research examined governance and political culture in the 1970s Hong Kong. Florence is one of the founders of the Hong Kong Research Hub (HKRH) at NTU and an Executive Board member of the Society for Hong Kong Studies (SHKS) . She is also the Series Editor of the ‘Cold War in Asia’ book series in Amsterdam University Press.

If you want to get a hard copy of the book, please go to Manchester University Press.

Should you have any questions about this event, please feel free to email us at [email protected].


Book Talk #10 –
Date: September 15, 2023 (Friday)
Time: 1700 – 1830 Hong Kong time
Format: Hybrid
Language: English


Preview of the book talk series:

#10 Covert colonialism: Governance, surveillance and political culture in British Hong Kong, c. 1966-97 with Florence Mok (Nanyang Technological University) on 15 September 2023 (Friday) at 1700HKT; Hybrid: Online & In-person

#11 Accomplice to Memory with Q.M. Zhang on 17 November 2023 (Friday) at 0900am HKT

Past book talks:

#1 Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub, 1930s–1998 by John D. Wong (HKU) on 07 October 2022 (Friday) at 1700HKT; In-person

#2 Hong Kong Visual Culture: The M+ Guide by Tina Pang (M+) on 04 November 2022 (Friday) at 1700HKT; In-person

#3 英國檔案中的香港前途問題 by Gary Cheung (CityU) on 18 November 2022 (Friday) at 1700HKT; In-person

#4 Building Colonial Hong Kong, Speculative Development and Segregation in the City by Cecilia L. Chu (HKU) on 25 November 2022 (Friday) at 1700HKT; Hybrid: Online & In-person

#5 Political Censorship in British Hong Kong, Freedom of Expression and the Law (1842–1997) by Michael Ng (HKU) on 09 December 2022 (Friday) at 1700HKT; Hybrid: Online & In-person

#6 Hong Kong Foodways (Hong Kong Matters) by Sidney Cheung (CUHK) on 13 January 2023 (Friday) at 1700HKT; In-person

#7 New Territories 界 by Justin Hui on 3 February 2023 (Friday) at 2100HKT; Online

#8 Hilton Cheong-Leen ( 張有興 ): First Chinese ‘Mayor’ of Hong Kong by Gary Cheung & Oliver Chou on 28 April 2023 (Friday) at 1700HKT; Hybrid: Online & In-person

#9 Unsettling Exiles: Chinese Migrants in Hong Kong and the Southern Periphery During the Cold War by Angelina Chin (Pomona College) on 12 May 2023 (Friday) at 1300HKT; Online


Speakers
Florence Mok
Date & Time
Talk #10 - 15 September 2023 (Friday) 1700 - 1830 HKT
Location
Hybrid
Language
English