{"product_id":"let-there-be-light-mark-clifford-9780231201698","title":"Let There Be Light: How Electricity Made Modern Hong Kong","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eLet There Be Light\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eClifford 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOffering new perspectives on twentieth-century Hong Kong, \u003ci\u003eLet There Be Light\u003c\/i\u003e reveals electricity as a catalyst of modernization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Mark Clifford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0231201699\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780231201698\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Columbia University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/18\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 312\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d","brand":"Mark Clifford","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44213375271167,"sku":"9780231201698","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_3de1ebd4-6fda-49cc-9b4a-594ac6ca14e0.jpg?v=1692113527","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/let-there-be-light-mark-clifford-9780231201698","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}