White Ghosts, Yellow Peril
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril is the first book ever to explore all sides of the relationship between China and New Zealand, and the peoples of China and New Zealand, during the whole of the seven or so generations after they initially came into contact. The Qing Empire and its successor states from 1790 to 1950 were vast, complex and torn by conflict. New Zealand, meanwhile, grew into a small, prosperous, orderly province of Europe. Not until now has anyone told the story of the links and tensions between the two countries during those years so broadly and so thoroughly.
The reader keen to know about this relationship will find in this book a highly readable portrait of the lives, thoughts and feelings of Chinese who came to New Zealand and New Zealanders who went to China, along with a scholarly but stimulating discussion of race relations, government, diplomacy, war, literature and the arts.
White Ghosts, Yellow Peril for some years to come will be the key general text in the field of the early history of New Zealand and China.
Stevan Eldred-Grigg
Stevan Eldred-Grigg is a leading novelist and historian. His first novel, Oracles and Miracles, was a runaway bestseller. He is the author of many other books, fiction and non-fiction, among them Diggers, Hatters and Whores: The story of the New Zealand gold rushes (2008), and White Ghosts, Yellow Peril: China and New Zealand, 1790–1950 (2014). Two earlier books focused on the world wars. Kaput! (2000) is a novel that tells the story of an ordinary German housewife and mother coping with Nazi dictatorship and Allied bombing. His previous book (2010) polarised readers with its trenchant criticisms. He now turns his uncompromising gaze on WWII.
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Zeng Dazheng
Zeng Dazheng (曾达峥) was raised in Xiamen, China, and now lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He has studied and tutored in New Zealand politics and economics, worked as a parliamentary officer in Wellington and subsequently as a policy analyst for the Ministry of Economic Development. At present he is completing a doctoral thesis at Victoria University of Wellington; the topic is 'Youth and social control in New Zealand political history'.
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