Thomas Larkin

Kowloon also appears to have been a rush job or afterthought in many of these earlier maps. Its shoreline is highly approximate, requires a lot of manipulation, and no two maps that I've found from the era are quite the same in where they place things.

These maps have given me MHHK's first territory map. Ordnance Mapping of mid-nineteenth century HK proved really accurate to a point, but precision fell away once coastlines get involved. The result is that the maps have been easy to centre, but very difficult to precisely align along the shore.

Spent bits of the last week correcting new maps pulled from the HKPRO. Some truly interesting ones of the development of The Peak and Cheung Chau. I've pulled a series that I'm excited about as well that surveys Kowloon, NT, and Sai Wan village lots (still to be processed).

Academic hack: if I split my time between PEI in the winter and HK in the summer, I can gain almost another month of forced vacation on account of weather.

Coastline change, for comparison.

This week's MHHK update. Stonecutter's Island, reclamation projects, and the villages to the west of Kowloon (1964). Not sure how accurate the source map was on rural lots and buildings, so will have to check these against the far more detailed large-scale surveys from the following decades.

Today’s best archival find is Caleb Cushing trying to figure out a suitable Chinese name. He eventually settled on 顧聖, but I think 鼓聲 (drumbeat) should have stuck. Would have looked better on the Treaty of Wangxia and the dozens of red calling cards he had written up.

Discounts, friends!

publication day.

the history of racial violence against immigrants in the early 20th c. remains as important to history as it does to our present

academic.oup.com/jah/article/...

With many thanks to those who supported me on this journey.

This is a fantastic article and such an important project! It sets a high bar for how colonial heritage projects and co-creation should be conducted. MBC also rejects extractive research practices through its efforts to bring research back to the community.

Congrats on the pub @brebisz.bsky.social!

Archives imitate life.

“I am still in Washington and for most of the time we are sweltering in tropical heat”

Love visiting a country where the museums have signs reminding you that you can’t bring your gun along.

This week's MHHK. So many lots to fill. Is the task hypnotic? Yes. Is it therapeutic? No. Have I watched two HBO miniseries while doing it? Absolutely.

While I don't fully agree with the periodization (there are parts of the last 5 months that feel more at home in the Smoot-Hawley era), Immerwahr draws some important comparisons - and also helps us think through the puzzle of Trump's awkward historical self-comparisons.

Now someone do Lincoln.

Medically Manufactured: The Story of Retrolental Fibroplasia By Jenny Hutton ~ When Lula Hardaway was told her 6-week-old baby Stevie was blind, doctors were unable give her an answer as to why. Born two months early in Saginaw, Michigan in May 1950, Stevie …

Congratulations to Bristol PhD student, Jenny Hutton, on her recent NLM blog posting about her historical research. @uobartsmatter.bsky.social @uobrishistory.bsky.social

Medically Manufactured: The Story of Retrolental Fibroplasia
circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2025/06/12/m...

Minnesota police urge protestors not to attend the ‘No Kings’ demonstration out of an ‘abundance of caution’. The far right proves that an abundance of violence will be used to silence dissent.

Today's MHHK work has really been more this week's MHHK work - to the detriment of the article I was supposed to be writing. Got sucked into building a road layer on this 1964 map of Kowloon. While it took forever, working backwards from this map should just be a process of subtraction.

Added MHHK's first georeferenced base map for Kowloon today. Likely going to have to redo it though because I forgot to correct Stonecutters Island.

Eventually the project will include the entire territory, but I can't say I'm looking forward to how long some of those maps are going to take.

The attached photo taken at about 8 pm is of the smoke haze we’re experiencing in one of Canada’s easternmost provinces.

Canadian wildfire smoke spreads across a third of United States More than 212 active fires were burning as of Tuesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

As with last year’s fires, it amazes me that international coverage of an environmental crisis affecting most of Canada is framed through its impact on the U.S.

Digital History Seed Grants Visit the post for more.

***Digital History Seed Grants***

The IEHS invites submissions for awards, up to $2,000 each, to support graduate students and early-career scholars seeking to develop or engage with digital history work connected to migration history and related fields.

Deadline: 8/1/25

iehs.org/awards/seed_...

Also, the cover-designer of the one for this particular event won 'the book about China bingo card'.

It's got 'communist red';
It's got that yellow hue;
It's got a buddha;
It's got a dragon AND a star.

A masterpiece in unoriginality.

Optimum Books claims to 'strengthen democracy one book at a time.' Their catalogue suggests otherwise. I don't think I've ever seen fear-mongering and conspiracy strengthen a democracy.

Nor am I sure that the author understands the difference between Taiwan and China

Optimum Books Game of Shadows Fathers Day Special | Only $10.00 per ticket. A Documentary by Christopher Leeson This is a limited attendance event so RSVP today TYPE CODE “Fathersday” AT Checkout for your...

That this event exists - in P.E.I no less - tells a concerning story about our simmering, historic, and often reactionary paranoia of China - a nation that, in contrast to the expansionist rhetoric of the U.S., is constantly upheld as a foil by the Right as the 'real' existential threat to Canada.

Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society - University of London Press The untold story of how a medieval guild united the worlds of commerce and religion and changed local life and international influence on the eve of the Reformation. Forging Fraternity in Late Medieva...

New cover reveal!

Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society: The Palmers' Guild of Ludlow by Rachael Harkes @latemedievalist.bsky.social

Part of our #OpenAccess New Historical Perspectives series, publishing in Nov

uolpress.co.uk/book/forging...

@ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org #Skystorians

Spent the last month wrapping up term and moving so I haven't found time to update about MHHK progress, but I've spent this afternoon tracking down source maps and wanted to share this 1958 one from the Hai Kwang Press. By far one of my favourites.

Kellett Island (where the RHK Yacht Club pin sits on the map) was connected to the mainland through land reclamation projects in 1969. Comparing the contemporary map with the 1924 map shows the extent of Wan Chai/Victoria Park development which extended to the breakwater visible in the HPC photo.

Still working on 1842 this week for the MHHK project. So instead I wanted to showcase one of my current favourite markers of shoreline change in Hong Kong: Kellett Island (photo courtesy of the @uobrishistory.bsky.social Historical Photographs of China project).

Catherine Chan's article on Lusophone public spheres in Hong Kong examines the Portuguese/Macanese community to question the preservation or masking of cultural identity and patriotic ties amongst foreign communities in British (semi)colonial space.

Two more (open access) articles published First View w/ Itinerario from our forthcoming volume on race, culture, identity, and imperial belonging!

Catherine Ladds's "Managing White Criminality" is a brilliant examination of delinquency, extrality, and colonial mores along the China coast.