May Days in Hong Kong

Edited by Robert Bickers and Ray Yep, this collection provides a sustained study of the anti-colonial disturbances that convulsed Hong Kong in 1967. Beginning with labour conflict, the campaign drew energy from the Cultural Revolution and from events in Macao before escalating into strikes, street confrontation, bomb attacks and emergency policing.

The contributors examine activists, colonial officials, police, diplomacy and public opinion rather than treating the crisis as a single ideological confrontation. They also trace its consequences: the defeat of the leftist campaign, changes in colonial social policy and the riots’ long afterlife in Hong Kong’s political memory and relationship with mainland China.