A Life of Sir Harry Parkes

British Minister to Japan, China and Korea, 1865-1885

Robert Morton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040789353
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Diplomazia e trattati

Harry Parkes was at the heart of Britain's relations with the Far East from the start of his working life at fourteen, to his death at fifty-seven. Orphaned at the age of five, he went to China on his own as a child and worked his way to the top. God-fearing and fearless, he believed his mission was to bring trade and 'civilisation' to East Asia. In his day, he was seen as both a hero and a monster and is still bitterly resented in China for his part in the country's humiliations at Western hands, but largely esteemed in Japan for helping it to industrialise. Morton's new biography, the first in over thirty years, and benefiting in part from access to the Parkes' family and archives, offers a more intimate and informed profile of the personal and professional life of a Victorian titan and one of Britain's most undiplomatic diplomats in the history of the British Civil Service.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• List of Illustrations
• 1 ‘Watch Therefore For Ye Knows Not’: Birmingham, 1828–1841
• 2 ‘A Sharp Intelligent Lad’: Macao – Hong Kong – Shanghai – Nanjing, 1841–1842
• 3 ‘Not Sufficient to Satisfy Me’: Zhoushan (Chusan) – Guangzhou (Canton), 1842–1843
• 4 ‘Here I am Now Perfectly Alone’: Amoy (Xiamen), 1844–1845
• 5 ‘A Continuous Settled Life Has No Charms for Me’: Fuzhou – Shanghai, 1845–1849
• 6 ‘I Saw a Good Deal’: India – Britain, 1849–1851
• 7 ‘I Distinctly Declined to Accede’: Formosa – Guangzhou, 1851–1854
• 8 ‘Hasty Love-making’: Bangkok – London – Bangkok, 1855–1856
• 9 ‘It Is the Cause of the West against the East’: Guangzhou, 1856–1857
• 10 ‘Never Sparing Himself in Any Way’: Guangzhou, 1857–1860
• 11 ‘The Executioner Stood by with Uplifted Sword’: Beijing, 1860
• 12 ‘I Do Not at All Like Being in a Great Man's Train’: Nanjing – Hankou (Wuhan) – Shanghai, 1860–1862
• 13 Sir Harry Parkes: Britain, 1862–1864
• 14 ‘The Drudgery of the Service’: Shanghai, 1864–1865
• 15 ‘The Appointment is Particularly Gratifying to Me’: Yokohama, 1865–1866
• 16 ‘The Most Superior Japanese’: Osaka – West Coast – Nagasaki – Mt. Fuji, 1867
• 17 The Meiji Restoration: Osaka – Kyoto – Tokyo, 1868
• 18 ‘We of Course Hope for Improvement’: Tokyo, 1869–1871
• 19 ‘This is Becoming Civilised with a Vengeance’: Britain, 1871–1873
• 20 ‘I Arrived Too Late’: Tokyo – Britain, 1874–1881
• 21 ‘I Am Deeply Sensible of the Services You have Rendered’: Tokyo, 1882–1883
• 22 ‘The Last Semi-civilised State’: Seoul, 1883
• 23 ‘I Can Find No Rest’: Beijing, 1884–1885
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Index