This is devastating, edifying, honest, exceptional. If you want to understand what is happening in HK, the absolute obliteration of any right to or opportunity for free speech or assembly, and how HK was freer as a UK colony than as a PRC colony, this is important reading.

Lim's telling of the history of HK was enormously helpful in my understanding of the current situation. I read a lot about HK and have spent a good amount of time there, and so it surprised me that I had bought the official PRC approved history of the place without looking further. That fake history is set forth as justification for China's current activities crushing the city under the heel of its very big boot. I thought I knew better than to just accept PRC versions of history and I felt chastened and reminded of why I should never not check on "information" issued by the Chinese government when reading Lim's comparisons of the identical language used in official statements about the HK protests and the "uprisings" (in English we call them peaceful protests) in other places actually in the PRC, including Tiananmen. Masters of the gaslight, and boy do they love a good slogan! Another piece of HK history that I had somehow missed was the historical resistance to any colonization, Chinese or English. This was well illustrated by the story of the King of Kowloon -- HKs own more political (and more insane) Banksy.

Lim has long been a favorite journalist of mine whose work with the BBC and NPR was essential listening for me. She has always been fair and even-handed in her reporting. Here though she discusses openly that she is a reporter second and a Hong Konger first. This book is 100% responsible and fact-based but it is not neutral. This is the cry of a person whose homeland is being destroyed.

Lim dedicated this book to the "people who fucking love Hong Kong" and I count myself as one, but also I think anyone who reads this will count themselves in that group even if they did not do so before. "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times!" (If I was overheard saying that in HK I would be jailed.) ( )