Purple Culture : RSS Product Feed :: From the Opium War to The Warlord Era http://www.purpleculture.net/ en Copyright (c) 2026 Purple Culture purple@purpleculture.net (Purple Culture) purple@purpleculture.net (Purple Culture) Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:31:34 +0800 Purple Culture News RSS Feed 1440 From the Opium War to The Warlord Era http://www.purpleculture.net/from-the-opium-war-to-the-warlord-era-p-12005 http://www.purpleculture.net/from-the-opium-war-to-the-warlord-era-pr-12005 The 1911 Revolution ended dynastic rule in China and paved the way for the founding of Asia's first republic Triggered by an accidental bomb explosion in Wuchang （modern-dayWuhan）, the revolution marked the culminatingpoint of decades of internal rebellion, foreignaggression and political decline; its leaders drewon a ferment of reformist and revolutionary ideasproduced by some of China's greatest modernthinkers. Although the 1911 Revolution did notresolve China's problems,it changed the countryfor ever, clearing a path for modernization, andmaking possible the more decisive revolutionof1949.
From the Opium War to the. Warlord Eraassembles a remarkable survey of historicalphotographs from leading collections around theworld.The images stretch from the Second OpiumWar to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, fromthe Boxer Rebellion to the Russo-Japanese Warand the outbreak of revolution through the riseand fall ofYuan Shikai an the ensuingWarlord Era.
Accompanying an introductory essay bythe editor Liu Heung Shing are essays fromthree scholars of revolutionary China - JosephI/sherick of UC San Diego, Max K.W. Huang ofthe "Academia Sinica", and Zhang Haipeng of theChinese Academy of Social Sciences reflectingon the causes, achievements and failures of the 1911 Revolution, and its enduring meaning.
This book is simply superb. Liu Heung Shing travelledthe world to secure the rare collection of photographsthat present the last 100 years of China's tumultuoushistory in the most vivid, searing light yet achieved in asingle volume.James Kynge, author of China Shakes the World6iChina's tumultuous encounter with the West over a century is captured in this remarkablecollection of photographs. Combing arcluves around the world, Liu has unearthed imagesat once poignant and provocative, of mandarins and schoolboys, officers and ear-cleanersinhabiting a country on the cusp of modernity.From the Opium War to the Warlord Era is aunique visual history of an era that continues to shape Clunese sensibilities today."Petcr Hcsslcr. author of'Rrver Tou,n: Two Years on the Yungtze.



About Author
Liu Heung Shing is a former foreign correspondent and photojournalist whose postings took him from Beijing to Uos Angeles, New Delhi to Seoul, and to Moscow for the Associated Press. During that time he photographed major world events fromtlic Soviet military occupation of A fghanistan toeivil war in Sri Lanka and China's)urgeoningeconomic reforms.
He was also on hand to capture the fall of the USSR: in 1992,IJiu shared a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News and an Overseas Press Club A ward for his covcrage of the Soviet Union's collapse. In1989,Liu was honored with the award of Pictureof the Ycar by the School of Journalism at the Unit-rsity of Missouri in the same year, Liu wasnamed Best Photographer by the Associated Press Mannaging Editors.
Liu is the author of the widely acclaimed Photographic documentation China After Mao and Soviet Union: Collapse of an Empire. He is the editor of China. Portrait of a Country, which has been published in six languages The book was selected by Britain's Sunday rimes as the Best Pic-turc Book 2008.
In 2010,liu co-authored with Karen Smith Shanghai: A Uistory in Photographs, 1842-Today. In 2004. Paris Photo named Liu as one of thehundrcd most influential people in contemporarypho to graphy.
Liu graduatcd from Ilunter College, City Lniversity of Neu Vork in 1975.He lives and Works in Beijing.