Speaker’s Series, Prof. David Clayton, University of York, United Kingdom
Hong Kong and Modern Global History: A Panel Discussion
Speaker: Prof. David Clayton, University of York, United Kingdom
Commentators: Prof. Robert Bickers, University of Bristol
Prof. Su Lin Lewis, University of Bristol
Prof. Simon Potter, University of Bristol
Date and Time: 24 February 2025, 3:30 – 5pm (UKT)
Venue: Research Space (1.H020), Arts Complex, University of Bristol
Language: English
Hybrid event. To attend, please register on Ticketpass.
Zoom details:
https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/96412017600?pwd=q4VkQf6Wp81nslQf1pM1wK0Aqxg1WB.1
Meeting ID: 964 1201 7600
Passcode: 277080
—-
The Hong Kong History Centre is excited to announce that Prof. David Clayton from the University of York will deliver a talk on his latest research, exploring Hong Kong’s place in modern global history. The talk will be followed by a panel discussion featuring historians from the University of Bristol.
Panel
Arguably, Hong Kong history’s is local history. Some of the best examples take the form of micro-histories shorn of master narratives. Historians of Hong Kong have focused on particular peoples, curious situations and unique happenings. But how do we connect our intriguing stories to the ‘big’ debates—including about the economic rise of the West and the ‘Rest’, world geo-strategic instability/stability, the spread of representative democracies/autocracies, the clash between local, national and cosmopolitan identities? This panel debates this problem of method.
To kick-start discussions, David Clayton draws his three-decade long effort to improve our understanding of Hong Kong’s economic history. He reflects on how his work has tackled near-universal questions about the role of markets and laws. The panel, featuring Robert Bickers, Su Lin Lewis, and Simon Potter, will offer comments and discuss the paper.
Paper abstract
As historians we tend to focus on particular people, curious situations and unique happenings. We write local history. Drawing on fifty years of international scholarship, this paper explores how historians of Hong Kong have also contributed to our collective understanding of the origins and effects of our current interconnectedness: modern global history. The paper divides into three parts. The first surveys how Hong Kong was slotted into debates about modernisation theory, an agenda that traced convergences and divergences in paths of development between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The second surveys how imperial historians placed Hong Kong within the patterns and puzzles of British decolonisation. The third examines transnational linkages into and out of Hong Kong, with a particular focus on flows of ideas, including across the Pacific. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a discussion regarding the appropriate historical method with which to study the Hong Kong past. The presenter will also take this opportunity to revisit his contributions to Hong Kong history which, coincidently, date back to 1997.
—-
David Clayton is a Professor at the University of York. He published Imperialism Revisited in 1997 which included an exploration of British government policy towards Hong Kong during the early 1950s. He teaches the political, cultural, social, economic and environment histories of Hong Kong, 1945-1997, at York.
Robert Bickers is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol, and a Co-Director of the Hong Kong History Project. He specialises in the history of colonialism, and in particular of the British empire and its relations with China and the history of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and modern Chinese history. His most recent book is China Bound: John Swire & Sons and its World.
Su Lin Lewis is Professor in Global and Asian History at the University of Bristol. She specialises in the social history of cities, transnational activism, and decolonisation, with a focus on modern Southeast Asia. She published Cities in Motion: urban life and cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia 1920-1940.
Simon Potter is Professor of Modern History at the University of Bristol and works on global and imperial histories of the mass media. In 2022 he published a centenary history, This is the BBC, with Oxford University Press.