Getting Stuck in for Shanghai

Getting Stuck in for Shanghai by Robert Bickers is another in the appealing Penguin China series of 100-odd page "Specials" on China and World War One. This particular volume covers the British "Shanghailanders" that went back to Europe to fight.

Bickers, as those who have read Empire Made Me – his full-length biography of Shanghai policeman Maurice Tinkler – may already know, is able to master both primary sources such as personal letters and contemporary newspaper accounts as well as the contemporary zeitgeist – a term I am using without irony in spite of the subject matter. The tone of this book is telegraphed by its subtitle: "Putting the Kibosh on the Kaiser from the Bund."