No Foreign Bones in China

"Author Peter Stursberg is a Canadian journalist, writer and war correspondent who has turned his talents to giving us a slice of cultural history through recounting the story of his own family. China fascinates us now just as it did in the Victorian era, and the detail and insight Stursberg provides in this family memoir bring the sights and sounds of pre-Communist China vividly to life. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and it is a pleasure to find a family with such an engrossing history given life again in capable hands." Mary Denis Garrett, The Advocate

"A fascinating narrative of life in China as seen through the eyes of a British colonial family, the Shaws.... An eye-opening, personal, and memorable look at a great land and its people, No Foreign Bones in China is compelling, informative, and highly recommended reading for students of 20th Century Chinese history." Wisconsin Bookwatch

"The most cunning aspect of the book lies in Stursberg's immense talent as a storyteller. No Foreign Bones in China, while ostensibly a memoir of British Imperialism, shines most in its telling of family history. It is through this history that the reader is party to such events as the Boxer and Taiping rebellion, the wave of anti-German sentiment in England and her colonies during the First World War, the dirty history of England's involvement in the opium trade, and the double-crosses and accidents of Colonial policy that allowed the British to turn a tenuous relationship with China into unacknowledged and unofficial rule over the country. And brilliantly, these events are told so as to almost seem as accidents that happened around the lives of average people who had tea, courted lovers, and raised families like anyone else." Mark Wells, The Gateway

"From Europe to Asia, through extensive research into his family background, Peter Stursberg takes his readers on a captivating journey focusing on the China of the 19e and 20e centuries. On page after page rich details bring authenticity and originality to his book. And as a reflection on the heydays of British and European dominance in China, it also casts an unblinking eye on the attitudes and, yes, strong prejudices of the day." Robert LeBlond, retired Foreign Service Officer

"I must say how much I enjoyed reading No Foreign Bones in China. Your family's long relationship with China is fascinating and the story deserves a wide readership in Canada and abroad. Your discovery of your Japanese grandmother and the veil of silence around her should resonate with readers in this increasingly multicultural country." Robert C. Fisher, Archivist, National Archives of Canada

"[Peter Stursberg's] new [book], No Foreign Bones in China: Memoirs of Imperialism and Its Ending, deals entertainingly with his ancestors whose lives in East Asia were rather more materialistic than spiritual.. The centrepiece is the author's grandfather, Capt. Samuel Lewis Shaw [1821-1908] who went to sea at 13 and arrived in China not long afterwards. This was well before the Second Opium War, which led to the system of so-called treaty ports by which Britain, and soon other Western nations, turned much of China into a virtual colony, at least economically. [Another instrument was the British-run Chinese customs service and post office department, where Stursberg's father worked.] " George Fetherling, The Vancouver Sun

"[Peter] Stursberg hasn't lost his ability to tell a great story. In No Foreign Bones in China -- his 14th book -- he unravels the tale of three generations of his own family and their life in China. He seamlessly weaves together the country's history -- from British imperialism to the Cultural Revolution -- with the experiences of his colonial family, beginning with the birth of his grandfather, Capt. Samuel Lewis Shaw in 1821." Maclean's

"More interesting than family genealogy or Chinese history are the insights Stursberg provides of life in the imperialists' China." Carolyn Redl, Times Colonist

"Bold, confident, well-researched and scholarly. One of the most interesting books on foreign missions that I've read in a long while. The author has done an engaging job of sketching the history of evangelicism and foreign involvement in China." And "This book will have great appeal to readers keen on history, culture and China. In my case, it wins on all three counts.. By the end of the book I felt I knew your ancestors and their friends better than my own forbears. I appreciated getting their view of life in China of old." Word Guild Judges

"Canadian journalist Stursberg tells the story of his grandfather, Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw (b. 1821), merchant seaman and captain of the King of Burma's yacht, his life in China with a Japanese wife, and how the events of the 19th century looked to him and his family." Jane Erskine, BOOK NEWS Inc.

"[Stursberg].uses his family history to illuminate what the Chinese regard as the Hundred Years of Humiliation under foreign domination preceding the birth of modern China in the twentieth century, and to illustrate what life was like for foreign residents in these turbulent times. The injured pride and intense resentment of the Chinese for this period erupted in fury when the Korean War broke out. The title of the book is the slogan chanted by Chinese youth as they systematically desecrated and destroyed the graves of foreigners in their country. The most notable exception was, and is, the Canadian doctor, Norman Bethune....This is an interesting story, well written and researched, which depicts the human face of great events." Sandy Crosbie, Edinburgh, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2004