Michael Sheridan

A superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule. The rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule are told with unique insight in this new history by Michael Sheridan, drawing on eyewitness reporting over three decades, interviews with key figures and documents from archives in China and the West. The story sweeps the reader from the earliest days of trade through the Opium Wars of the 19th century to the age of globalisation and the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It ends with the battle for democracy on the city's streets and the ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party. How did it come to this? We learn from private papers that Margaret Thatcher anguished over the fate of Hong Kong, sought secret American briefings on how to handle China and put her trust in an adviser who was torn between duty and pride. The deal they made with Beijing did not last. The Chinese side of this history, so often unheard, emerges from memoirs and documents, many new to the foreign reader, revealing how the party's iron will and negotiating tactics crushed its opponents. Yet the voices of Hong Kong people - eloquent, smart and bold - speak out here for ideals that refuse to die. Sheridan's book tells how Hong Kong opened the way for the People's Republic as it reformed its economy and changed the world, emerging to challenge the West with a new order that raises fundamental questions about progress, identity and freedom. It is critical reading for all who study, trade or deal with China.

An updated, rewritten and expanded edition of the cult classic exploring Jacobsen's midcentury design through the microcosm of a single hotel room In the center of Copenhagen, on the sixth floor of the Royal Hotel, Room 606 preserves the definitive masterwork of the Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen, in microcosm. Room 606 is the only surviving interior of the SAS House; the combined luxury hotel and satellite air terminal that Jacobsen designed for the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and completed in 1960. The SAS House was the most complete commission of Jacobsen’s career, in which he exercised the full range of his talents as a designer of furniture, lamps, textiles, gardens, tableware and graphics. As the fragment that encapsulates the basic ideas of the whole building, Room 606 provides a lens for reconstructing Jacobsen’s vanished masterwork in words and images. Richly illustrated with nearly 500 photographs and drawings, this book guides the reader on a virtual tour through the Royal Hotel and SAS Air Terminal as they stood in 1960. Along the way, the author reveals the connections between the SAS House and Jacobsen’s earlier buildings and objects. As a result, the tour that begins in Room 606 provides a general introduction to Jacobsen’s career. Based on his ongoing study of modern Nordic architecture, Michael Sheridan has developed ideas established in his 2003 cult classic?also titled Room 606 and long out of print?to arrive at a fresh perspective on Arne Jacobsen’s life’s work. Using new text and images, Sheridan reveals the essence of Jacobsen’s creative practice, in which he employed technology to heighten the presence of nature. New York–based architect Michael Sheridan is an internationally recognized authority on modern Danish architecture and design. His earlier books on those subjects include Landmarks: The Modern House in Denmark (2014) and Louisiana: Architecture and Design (2017).