The remarkable success of twentieth-century Hong Kong was driven by
electricity. The British colony’s stunning export-driven economic
growth, its status as a Cold War capitalist dynamo, its energetic
civil society, its alluring urban modernity—all of these are
stories of electricity’s transformative power. Let There Be Light
is a groundbreaking history of electrification in Hong Kong. Mark
L. Clifford traces how a power company and its visionary founder
jumpstarted Hong Kong’s postwar economic rise and set in motion
far-reaching political and social change against the backdrop of
Hong Kong’s shifting relations with the People’s Republic of
China and the United Kingdom. Clifford examines avowedly
laissez-faire Hong Kong’s attempt to nationalize electricity
companies and the longer-term implications of debates over the
power supply for citizen activism and the development of civil
society, government involvement in tackling housing and other
social issues, and state controls on private businesses. Clifford
explores the effects of electrification on both grand politics and
daily life. In the geopolitical struggle of the Cold War, Hong Kong
became an explicitly anti-Communist showcase of production and
consumption. Its bright lights and neon signs stood in contrast to
the darkness and drabness of neighboring China. Electricity
transformed people’s everyday lives, allowing children to study
at night, streets to be lit, and shops in a self-consciously
commercial mecca to stay open late. Offering new perspectives on
twentieth-century Hong Kong, Let There Be Light reveals electricity
as a catalyst of modernization.
General
| Imprint: |
Columbia University Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Series: |
Center on Global Energy Policy Series |
| Release date: |
June 2023 |
| Authors: |
Mark Clifford
|
| Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
| Pages: |
312 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-231-20168-1 |
| Categories: |
Books
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
0-231-20168-0 |
| Barcode: |
9780231201681 |
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