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Shaping Canton: The Mountains are High and the Emperor Far Away

Shaping Canton: The Mountains are High and the Emperor Far Away
by Peter Cookson Smith

Publication Date: August 2022
Format: Softcover with flaps
324 pages
Publisher: ORO Editions
Size: 9″ × 9” Square
ISBN: 978-1954081642
Typeset in Filosofia and Degular
Cover illustration by Peter Cookson Smith
Book design by Pablo Mandel


The book takes as its starting point the city of Canton, at the heart of the most populous built-up metropolitan area in Mainland China, and a city that has for several centuries held a central position with regard to economic, social, and physical change in the country.

‘Shaping Canton’ focuses on the modern history of Canton. The text and illustrations explore and set out the various stages and events leading up to the modern city, by way of a reinvigorated Chinese superpower, from the founding of trade between Europe and the East in the late 15th century, to the beachheads of foreign influence, and forces of transformation through periods of revolution, political transition, and reform up to the present time.