13th Macau Literary Festival | Public Lecture: The Peking Express – The True Story of China’s Great Robbery of 1923
13th Macau Literary Festival | Public Lecture: The Peking Express - The True Story of China's Great Robbery of 1923
11
Mar
Meet the author on Monday, March 11, 10AM, at the USJ Don Bosco Auditorium!
About the Book:
The Peking Express – The Bandits Who Stole a Train, Stunned the West, and Broke the Republic of China
The thrilling true story of a train-robbing revolutionaries and passengers who got more than they paid for in this Murder on the Orient Express-style adventure, set in China’s republican era.
May 1923, when Shanghai publisher and reporter John Benjamin Powell bought a first-class ticket for the Peking Express, he pictured an idyllic overnight journey on a brand-new train of unprecedented luxury-exactly what the advertisements promised. Seeing his fellow passengers, including mysterious Italian lawyer Giuseppe Musso, a confidante of Mussolini and lawyer for the opium trade, and American heiress Lucy Aldrich, sister-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., he knew it would be an unforgettable trip.
Charismatic bandit leader and populist rabble rouser Sun Mei-yao had also taken notice of the new train from Shanghai to Peking. On the night Powell’s trip of a lifetime, sun launched his plan to make a brazen political statement: he and a thousand fellow bandits descended on the train, capturing dozens of hostages.
Aided by local proxy authorities, the humiliated Peking government soon furiously gave chase. At the bandits’ mountain stronghold, a five-week siege began.
Brilliantly written, with new and original research, The Peking Express tells the incredible true story of a clash that shocked the world-becoming so celebrated it inspired several Hollywood movies-and set the course for China’s two-decade civil war.
About the Author:
James M. Zimmerman is a Beijing-based author and lawyer who has lived and worked in China for more than twenty-five years. He is among China’s leading foreign lawyers and represents companies and individuals confronted with the political and legal complexities of doing business in Mainland China. He is the former four-term chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.
Details:
Date: Monday, 11 March 2024
Time: 10:00
Location: Don Bosco Auditorium, USJ Ilha Verde Campus
Language: English
Organiser: The Script Road / USJ Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Moderated by: Dr. Ricardo Pinto
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