Jardine Matheson : traders of the far east

A history of Jardine Matheson covering the period between 1832, when the company was founded, and 1949, when the company was expelled from mainland China following the Communist revolution. Based originally in Canton (Guangzhou), the company soon moved to Hong Kong where it has continued to operate, the only company to pre-date the Treaty of Nanking, which opened China to foreign commerce in 1842. Set against the wider context of Sino-British history, the author examines the company's history alongside key events such as the ending of the East India Company's monopoly, the Opium wars, the development of Hong Kong, the introduction of railways to China, the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Boxer rebellion and the First and Second World Wars.