Wartime Macau: living on the edge

Por estes dias, mas em Dezembro de 1941, o exército japonês estava muito próximo de consumar a invasão de Hong Kong mudando o rumo dos acontecimentos da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Macau não chegou a ser invadido pelas tropas nipónicas mas a sua história mudaria para sempre...

Everything changed in World War Two. After the Japanese takeover of Hong Kong in December 1941, Macao became the only part of East Asia not under Japanese control. The population tripled with a massive influx of refugees.

Na sequência da edição do livro “Macau 1937-1945: os anos da Guerra”, em 2012, da autoria de João F. O. Botas, o professor Geoffrey C. Gunn, desafiou vários investigadores a colaborarem na edição de uma obra, escrita em inglês, que abordasse os diversos aspectos das consequências em Macau da segunda guerra mundial (segunda guerra-sino japonesa e guerra do pacífico) período do domínio militar japonês na região. Agora chega às livrarias o resultado desse trabalho sob o título “Wartime Macau: under the japanese shadow”, uma edição da Hong Kong University Press.
O livro - apresentado em Macau nos primeiros dias de Dezembro - teve a coordenação de Geoffrey C. Gunn e conta com a participação de João F. O. Botas, Roy Eric Xavier e Stuart Braga.
An international group of contributors come together in Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow to investigate how Macau escaped the fate of direct Japanese invasion and occupation. Exploring the broader diplomatic and strategic issues during that era, this volume reveals that the occupation of Macau was not in Japan’s best interest because the Portuguese administration in Macau posed no threat to Japan’s control over the China coast and acted as a listening post to monitor Allied activities.

Índice / Content
Introduction
Geoffrey C. Gunn
- Chapter 1. Wartime Macau in the Wider Diplomatic Sphere
Geoffrey C. Gunn
- Chapter 2. Macau 1937–45: Living on the Edge: Economic Management over Military Defences
João F. O. Botas
- Chapter 3. Hunger amidst Plenty: Rice Supply and Livelihood in Wartime Macau
Geoffrey C. Gunn
- Chapter 4. The Macanese at War: Survival and Identity among Portuguese Eurasians during World War II
Roy Eric Xavier -
Chapter 5. Nossa Gente (Our People): The Portuguese Refugee Community in Wartime Macau
Stuart Braga
- Chapter 6. The British Army Aid Group (BAAG) and the Anti-Japanese Resistance Movement in Macau
Geoffrey C. Gunn
- Epilogue, Geoffrey C. Gunn
- Conclusion, Geoffrey C. Gunn
Appendices
I: English Version of Letter from Governor Teixeira to Consul Fukui re Military Ultimatum
II: Jack Braga’s Notebook on the Price of Rice
III: Maria Broom’s Letter Detailing Her Hong Kong–Macau Escape Experience
Glossary, Timeline, General Bibliography, Contributors, Index

Some Reviews/ Algumas Recensões:

Asian Review of Books, por Peter Gordon

“Wartime Macau deals with a fascinating and woefully understudied topic. The essays collected here show that there was no singular experience of World War II in Macau; how one experienced the war depended on a complex calculus of ethnicity, class, and connections. And yet, taken together, these experiences shaped the trajectory of the city’s political and social development for decades to come.”
Cathryn H. Clayton, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
“This book represents a real breakthrough. Previous English-language accounts of Macau during the World War II have focused largely on the activities of the British in this neutral ‘Casablanca’. Drawing extensively on Portuguese, Japanese, and local Macanese sources, Geoffrey Gunn and his team have assembled a far broader picture, revealing the dilemmas and choices of Portugal’s beleaguered colonial government and placing Macau in a geopolitical context that stretched from the Azores to Australia.”
Philip Snow, author of The Fall of Hong Kong