No comments about The Incredible Adventures of Louis Riel: Canada's Most Famous Revolutionary (Amazing Stories) (Amazing Stories).

5 comments about The Last Governor.

1. This book is one of the best books about the history and political development of HK. It not only gives a brief but interesting historical outline at the beginning of the book, it also traces the development of HK politics. What the governors before Chris Patten did and what have been changed since the arrival of Patten. It also outlines lots of power struggles between the governor and the ministers in Britain and how Patten dealt with them. For sure the relations between the governor and the Prime Minister John Major is a key factor contributing to the "success" of the governor. Of course one would have no doubt about that the close relationship between the governor and the writer, Jonathan Dimbleby, who followed Patten to come to HK and spent several years with him, which does enable him to access some crucial but secret matters that are not easily accessed by other journalists. Being a HK citizen, reading the book enables me not just to know the past better but it also enriches me about the situations of HK at that time. Reading it is just like passing through the history once again, with all those political arguments between China and both Patten and Britain reappearing in real life. Another interesting thing about the book is that it also touches lots of the everyday lives of the ordinary people living in HK, how did they feel about the political arguments and what did they plan to do after the handover of China. This makes the book more lively. This book is definitely a book that students of history/Political Science/HK Studies should read.



2. After reading the online review of Theroux's Kowloon Tong (a fictional account of the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong), I am surprised to find that only one customer have contributed a review to Dimbleby's marvelous work on the historical events. Dimbleby provided an excellent and comprehensive account of the political events that led to the signing of the 1984 Sino-British agreement, the arrival of Chris Patten, the introduction of legislative reform, and the eventual derailment of the democratic movement by the Communist Chinese Government. Dimbleby also tell the stories of several Hong Kong citizens and their views of the Handover. Being a native of Hong Kong who have spent my last 12 years in the States, Dimbleby's book brought me up-to-date on the big political stride taken by and the obstacles awaiting the people of Hong Kong.



3. I loved this book. I thought it was a great narrative on Chris Patten and his governorship and the hardships he endured. The book spares almost no detail, but I would have liked to see more of the Democrat's point of view. This book is absolutely necessary for people who wish to know in-depth about his governorship.



4. Jonathan Dimbleby's The Last Governor is a tour de force that gives the reader an insider's perspective into the tenure of Hong Kong's last colonial leader, Chris Patten. Dimbleby treats the reader to a narrative account of the trials and tribulations that Patten faced as he attempted to enact democratic reforms in Great Britain's last colonial jewel. Although one would undoubtedly expect the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to be vociferously opposed to any belated attempt by the British colonial authorities to bequeath a semblance of democracy on Hong Kong, Dimbleby makes the case that Patten's biggest enemies often came from within his own government. Dimbleby's revelations that selected British cabinet and Foreign Office officials shamelessly sought to downgrade the importance of Hong Kong and sacrifice Patten's proposed reforms on the alter of commercial relations with the PRC, resulted in Dimbleby being investigated by the Foreign Office for possible receipt of secret intelligence materials. Dimbleby was cleared of these allegations, but the vast array of insider information that Dimbleby amassed for this book strengthens the strident arguments that Dimbleby advances. Only a handful of participants in The Last Governor emerge with their reputations unscathed. Hong Kong's local and international business elite is portrayed as willing supplicants in the PRC's efforts to scale back personal and political liberties after Hong Kong's reversion to PRC sovereignty, a position easily enforced by PRC threats to their commercial interests. Martin Lee and Emily Lau, two of Hong Kong's leading democracy advocates, are portrayed as actually weakening Patten's push for democratic reforms through their uncompromising approach. The various representatives of the PRC are painted as unbending ideologues with little appreciation of Hong Kong's way of life. Dimbleby is most critical of the British officials, past and present, who acted to either inadvertently or deliberately sabotage Patten's governorship. Most prominent on this list is Sir Percy Cradock, Great Britain's lead negotiator in the 1984 Joint Declaration and former Ambassador to the PRC. Cradock comes off as a modern-day Neville Chamberlain, willing to cut a bad deal with an unsavory power for the sake of diplomatic expediency. Cradock compounded this error by working both privately and publically to weaken Patten's political position and policies. Dimbleby also argues that the Cradock mentality had infected the entire Foreign Office and selected members of John Major's cabinet, who worked to undercut Patten and sell-out Hong Kong in favor of better commercial relations with the PRC. The greatest strength of The Last Governor is also its greatest weakness. While such open access to Patten gives this book the necessary dramatic propulsion, it also strikes the reader as serving as Patten's mouthpiece. While Dimbleby does downgrade Patten for underestimating the challenges he was to face as Governor, Dimbleby's portrayal of Patten as the lonely David fighting against the multi-headed Goliath seems to diminish the numerous allies Patten needed to help him accomplish the limited reforms he was able to enact. Dimbleby could have also delved deeper into the political rationale behind the PRC's bargaining position and policies regarding Hong Kong. The Last Governor is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in Hong Kong, Chinese, or British affairs and to readers interested in how bureaucratic politics affects international diplomacy. Dimbleby's prose is brisk and should easily captivate and entrance the reader. Keep in mind that this is not an academic tome, so Dimbleby's point of view is repeatedly expressed without reservation or apology.



5. I loved this book. He seemed genuine and really care the fate of the Hong Kong Chinese.

   Regardless of the so-called hidden agenda behind the rush to the democracy before the handover, the truth was back then none of the patten's predecessors had the political reforms in agenda. They were all diplomats and they only really concerned to kowtowing Beijing. Patten was a politican and he tried to work and fight for the benefits on behalf of HIS constituents i.e. people of Hong Kong. He got unfairly smeared by Beijing in return just because the truth hurts.

   The bottom line was Chris Patten did leave a legacy way better than Tung che-hwa, the chief executive of Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region-not the disease) could ever dream of. What an irony it was when the white Anglo-Saxon master who make Hong Kong prosperous and better than the mainland Chinese themselves.

   When the Union Jack lowered the last time on June 30, 1997, it symbolized not only the beginning of the fall of Hong Kong, but also spell the death of Hong Kong. Hong Kong-the beacon and the crown jewel of what a Chinese society ought to be back then ceased to exist.

No comments about Steel My Soldiers' Hearts.

No comments about The Diaries of Northrop Frye, 1942-1955 (Collected Works of Northrop Frye).

No comments about A Haitian's Coming of Age in 1959: In the Postcolonial Light And Shadow of Castro And Duvalier (Caribbean Studies).

No comments about CLR James: a political biography.: An article from: Labour/Le Travail.

1 comments about Oldtimers: On the Road with the Legendary Heroes of Hockey.

1. A very nice book on the little told world of oldtimer hockey tours.
   There is one scene in the book, where the oldtimers play a gag on an unsuspecting rock singer on one of the teams that night, that is hysterical.
   Overall, very worthwhile for hard-core hockey fans.

No comments about Down Home: Notes of a Maritime Son.

4 comments about In Veronica's Garden.

1. This book sets out to tell the story of a garden and the larger-than-life personality who helped in its creation. The garden is the Milner Garden and Woodland, near Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island off Canada's south west coast. It has an international reputation as a beautiful "natural" woodland garden. Sadly, the book does not do the garden justice.

   The Veronica of the title is Veronica Milner, born to an aristocratic English family and related to both Winston Churchill and Princess Diana. She first married Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin and lived a life of privilege in an Irish castle. Her second husband, Ray Milner, was a prominent and wealthy Canadian businessman who seems to have been an exceptionally nice man. Ray had previously been married to Catherine and the two of them had bought the land and developed what became the Milner Garden. Both loved the garden and the trees that gave it its lovely natural setting beside the ocean. After Catherine's death Ray met and married Veronica and somehow managed to live amicably with this selfish, snobbish, difficult woman and to finance her extravagances, which included improvements to the garden.

   The writer seems to be fascinated with Veronica's wealthy and titled background, and with visits from the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Princess Diana to the garden. The reader has to struggle through page after page of name dropping. I had been hoping for a book about the garden, not "Lives of the Rich and Famous". There is very little information about the design of the garden, and how it evolved, and it seems that Veronica took much of the credit due to Ray and Catherine Milner. The illustrations are adequate (except for the maps, which are quite crude) but not professional quality and don't really reflect the beauty of the garden.

   This is a regional book with little to recommend it to readers outside British Columbia. Actually, there's not much to recommend it to local readers either.




2. Thoroughly enjoyed this book..great saga, even for non-gardeners. A most interesting woman. A true biography, way more then a book about gardens. Will hold wide appeal.



3. Great read about an eccentric lady and the two amazing gardens she built. Lots of royalty namedropping and interesting pictures. Well written.



4. Now that I live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, it's a short drive up the Island Highway to Milner Gardens in Qualicum Beach. A recent visit to the woodland gardens and English-style cottage with its breathtaking views of the Strait of Georgia was all the more memorable due to my reading of Margaret Cadwaladr's book, In Veronica's Garden. (The title comes from a book of the same title by poet Alfred Austin published in 1896.)
   
   Whether you can visit the garden in person or not, you can delight in its beauty in the pages of Cadwaladr's book. She has woven a fascinating story around botanical names of flowers, family histories, facts about the ownership of Milner Gardens, its famous visitors and the garden experts who have influenced it. Most of the colour photos that greatly enhance the book were taken by the author. This is an engrossing book, one of those that is difficult to put down.
   
   At the heart of the story is Veronica Milner. In fact, when author and subject met, Veronica said it was important to understand her in order to understand the garden. A garden which features over 500 varieties of rhododendrons contrasting with the majestic Douglas-firs and red-cedars of the West Coast rain forest. To gather information about the garden and its owner, Cadwaladr put many photographs of the garden in an album. As they chatted and looked at the photos, the visual cues would trigger Veronica's memory and keep her focused. Cadwaladr found this tactic to be so useful that she also took picture books from the Edwardian era, for instance, to her visits with Veronica.
   
   Within a week of meeting Veronica in 1996, Cadwaladr took her first trip to Ireland and visited Glin, the castle where Veronica lived during her first marriage to Desmond FitzGerald, the Knight of Glin. Veronica's son Desmond, the current Knight of Glin, allowed Cadwaladr access to his father's detailed diaries, which ended shortly before the elder FitzGerald's death in 1949. The diaries confirmed for the author many details about artists, writers and prominent garden experts who had influenced the development of the gardens in Qualicum Beach.
   
   Veronica Villiers was born in London, England, in 1909 and was descended from the Duke of Marlborough, as was Winston Churchill, her mother's cousin, which meant they were related to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. When Veronica married Desmond FitzGerald in 1929, they moved to Glin, the castle and 500 acre estate near Limerick. The couple had two daughters and a son. From the time Veronica and Desmond began their married life, they began to update the castle (built in the 1780s) and create a magnificent garden.
   
   Cadwaladr gives a candid portrait of Veronica, an imperious woman, who was a gardener as well as a painter of flowers. Apparently, she had dalliances during her first marriage and was known to be a difficult, complex and unusual woman. When Desmond was ill with tuberculosis, he and Veronica travelled to New York and Chicago to visit several doctors. While on a train, they met Canadian businessman Ray Milner. After Desmond died, Veronica, in a crimson satin dress, married Ray Milner in London in 1954.
   
   The home that Veronica moved to in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island had been the summer home of Ray and his first wife Rina. With the help of Ted and Mary Greig, who owned a nursery in Royston, Veronica began to expand the garden. It became not a manicured garden of mowed lawns but rather controlled chaos, as it has been described. Garden writer William Robinson had a profound influence on Veronica and therefore on the style of the garden and the plants chosen for it.
   
   Veronica became a widow again in 1975 when Ray died. She continued to travel and employ servants from India. Winston Churchill's daughter Mary Soames visited her in 1984. Charles and Diana visited in 1986. A photograph of Princess Diana, her feet on the rung of a chair, stirs a poignant memory. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited the garden and stayed at the house in October 1987. Veronica, though, had to stay at a nearby hotel while the royal visitors slept in her room (on a new mattress) and only got to see them in the last hour of their visit.
   
   To preserve the gardens, especially following her demise, Veronica found a benefactor via Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo. The garden was dedicated on May 17, 1996, and Veronica was presented with a honorary certificate in horticulture. The author and her husband, Jim, who was coordinator of the horticulture program at Malaspina, were in attendance. That was the day Cadwaladr met Veronica, a woman who complained about "the decline of the aristocracy." Cadwaladr found her subject to be "both gifted and far-sighted." Veronica "created a Canadian version of a "wild garden" in the rainforest, a teaching tool and living laboratory in a time when conservation was becoming increasingly important." Veronica Milner died in 1998.
   
   This book is a stunning example of the results of dedication to life story, including the research, the interviews, the special relationship formed, the surprises and knowledge gleaned along the way. In Cadwaladr's case, she took on the extra challenge of starting her own publishing company to publish her book. When I last spoke to her, she was getting ready to go into a second printing.
   
   Margaret Cadwaladr has had a long-standing interest in autobiography and life story. She took an interdisciplinary graduate-level course at the University of British Columbia on the topic and gives workshops now on life writing as well as on the subject of self-publishing. She often is asked to speak to gardening clubs in Canada and the U.S.
   
   by Mary Ann Moore
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
   reviewing books by, for, and about women

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