My new book is out: China Bound: John Swire & Sons and its World, 1816-1980 is published by Bloomsbury. The book covers the period from the first recorded operation of the original John Swire in Liverpool, to the cusp of its re-entry into China in the early 1980s and the last visit to Asia of Swire’s great-grandson, J. K. ‘Jock’ Swire.

You’ll find reviews in the South China Morning Post, and the Asian Review of Books.

‘From colonial Hong Kong to pirate battles, tea-trade to Taipans, wartime container shipping to early airlines, there is barely a dull page’, The Wire China