A Murder in Yunnan - by David Leffman (Paperback)

About the Book

Who did kill British diplomat Augustus Margary on the remote China-Burma frontier in 1875? Against a background of cultural incomprehension, A Murder in Yunnan unpicks the tangle of reports, rumor, suspicions and newspaper rants clouding the facts behind the killing - an event which brought Britain and China to the brink of war.

Book Synopsis

Who did kill British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary on the remote China-Burma frontier in 1875? It could have been agents of the Burmese king, eager to stop the British from undermining his own country's trade with China, or local Chinese, scared that Margary was spearheading a British invasion from Burma. Some suspected a plot going right back to the xenophobic Chinese governor, Cen Yuying, or perhaps Margary had simply run foul of bandits - and how was a tribute envoy of Burmese elephants involved? Against a background of colonial arrogance and cultural incomprehension, A Murder in Yunnan unpicks the complex tangle of official reports, rumor, suspicions and unreliable newspaper rants clouding the facts behind Margary's killing - an event which brought Britain and China to the brink of war.

Review Quotes

As David Leffman observes in A Murder in Yunnan, the southwesterly province's role in the grand story of China is often relegated to small player status. A largely independent kingdom for much of its history, even after Yunnan's incorporation into the Celestial Empire in the 13th century, the province remained cut off from the rest of China until the late 20th century by a string of snow-ridged mountains. The further west one traveled, writes Leffman, "the less 'Chinese' the landscape and people became." He should know. Leffman first visited China in 1985, and co-authored several China guidebooks over four decades of travel and exploration. As any travel writer will testify, Chinese history books might marginalize Yunnan, but the Southwest, with its wild topography and tapestry of ethnic groups, is invariably the meatiest chapter of a guidebook. --Thomas Bird "China Books Review"

About the Author

David Leffman is a travel writer and photographer who first visited China in 1985. Since then he has clocked up over six years in the country, researching guidebooks for Rough Guides and DK and writing newspaper articles on Chinese history and culture. He has also authored The Mercenary Mandarin, a biography of the 19th-century British adventurer in China, William Mesny; and Paper Horses, about traditional woodblock prints of Chinese folk gods.