From: danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny Yee) Date: Wed, 24 May 1995 00:08:23 +1000 Subject: Book Review - Ancestors title: Ancestors : Chinese in Colonial Australia by: Jan Ryan publisher: Fremantle Arts Centre Press 1995 subjects: history, Australia, China other: 191 pages, references, index _Ancestors_ is a study of the Chinese in colonial Western Australia (during the final decades of the nineteenth century). It describes the origins of Chinese workers in China, their recruitment via Singapore, their working conditions, and their situation in commercial and criminal law, as well as the general attitudes towards them on the part of the English population. Though the more technical parts have been omitted or put into appendices, _Ancestors_ shows its origins as a PhD thesis. The dependence on formal sources is obvious -- chapter two is clearly based on immigration records, chapters six and seven on the civil and criminal legal records, and chapter eight on the record of deaths, for example -- but Ryan has done a very good job of producing a readable account from these kinds of impersonal records, and more personal material is used to good effect where available. Its subject is too specialised for it to have wide appeal, but anyone interested in a unusual perspective on Western Australian colonial history should have a look at _Ancestors_. It will also be of comparative interest to those studying the Chinese in eastern Australia, or overseas Chinese more generally. -- Disclaimer: I was offered and accepted a review copy of _Ancestors_, but I have no stake, financial or otherwise, in its success. -- %T Ancestors %S Chinese in Colonial Australia %A Jan Ryan %I Fremantle Arts Centre Press %C South Fremantle %D 1995 %O paperback, references, index, A$19.95 %G ISBN 1-86368-107-8 %P 191pp %K history, Australia, China Danny Yee (danny@cs.su.oz.au) 24 May 1995 ------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright (C) Danny Yee 1995 : Comments and criticism welcome ------------------------------------------------------------- URL http://www.anatomy.su.oz.au/danny/book-reviews/index.html -------------------------------------------------------------