Hong Kong Takes Flight

Hong Kong Takes Flight successfully amalgamates aviation history with colonial and business history…Vigorously respond[s] to the call for putting the history of flight into a wider context…Deserve[s] praise for highlighting aviation’s crucial role in forging new identities amid dramatic geopolitical change. -- Jürgen P. Melzer * Technology and Culture * John Wong tells a fascinating story of the metamorphosis of commercial aviation in colonial Hong Kong and how the remarkable transformation helps shed light on the intersection of changing regional politico-economic dynamics, on the one hand, and intensifying globalizing processes, on the other. While there are not a few studies with ‘Global’ and ‘Hong Kong’ in their titles, as far as I am aware Wong’s is the first serious scholarly study that explicitly connects these two lines of inquiry. What distinguishes Wong’s study is his deft use of a variety of archives [and his] uncanny ability to weave together many seldom-told stories based on disparate archival materials. -- Robert Bickers, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of History, University of Bristol Hong Kong’s development from major seaport to global aviation hub was not predetermined. The city’s newly autonomous colonial administrators and its famed corporate agility leveraged contingent historical and geopolitical circumstances to make it. Wong reveals with clarity and detail how Hong Kong was not only made into a global aviation hub, but also how that hub remade identities and interests in the city. -- Prasenjit Duara, Oscar Tang Family Distinguished Professor, Duke University A fascinating story of the metamorphosis of commercial aviation in colonial Hong Kong and a timely reminder that Hong Kong as a global hub was made, not born. -- Leo K. Shin, Convenor of the Hong Kong Studies Initiative, University of British Columbia