The story of Hong Kong's social, political, and economic development is a remarkable Chinese-British chronicle. This book contains first-hand accounts of life and times in Hong Kong from before the Second World War to the end of its life as a colonial territory. Over six decades, Hong Kong has been transformed from a sleepy colonial backwater, to an overcrowded, refugee haven fraught with health and welfare problems, to a shining model of laissez-faire capitalism, with an exemplary public housing programme, a modicum of democracy, and a thriving, hybrid cultural life. The contributors to this book recall the important events along the rocky path to development, including the housing crisis of the 1950s, the 1967 anti-Government riots, the Sino-British talks of the 1980s, the effect on the Hong Kong people of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, and the contentious politics of the transition to Chinese rule in 1997.