Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2023, 384 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2023, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Kim Kovacs
Buy This Book
The gripping true story of the bold and determined museum curators who saved the priceless treasures of China's Forbidden City in the years leading up to World War II and beyond.
Spring 1933: The silent courtyards and palaces of Peking's Forbidden City, for centuries the home of Chinese emperors, are tense with fear and expectation. Japan's aircrafts drone overhead, its troops and tanks are only hours away. All-out war between China and Japan is coming, and the curators of the Forbidden City are faced with an impossible question: how will they protect the vast imperial art collections in their charge? A difficult and monumental decision is made: to safeguard the treasures, they will need to be evacuated.
The magnificent collections contain a million pieces of art—objects that carry China's deepest and most ancient memories. Among them are irreplaceable artefacts: exquisite paintings on silk, vanishingly rare Ming porcelain, and the extraordinary Stone Drums of Qin, which are adorned with 2,500-year-old inscriptions of crucial cultural significance.
For sixteen terrifying years, under the quiet leadership of museum director Ma Heng, the curators would go on to transport the imperial art collections thousands of miles across China—up rivers of white water, across mountain ranges, and through burning cities. In their search for safety the curators and their fragile, invaluable cargo journeyed through the maelstrom of violence, chaos, and starvation that was China's Second World War.
Told for the first time in English and playing out across a vast historical canvas, this is the exhilarating story of a small group of men and women who, when faced with war's onslaught on civilization, chose to resist. Fragile Cargo reminds us of the enduring power of beauty in a world beset by conflict and violence.
Prelude
THE FORBIDDEN CITY
Peking, January 28, 1765
We begin in a silvered winter darkness, the air tingling with frost. Mounds of old, hard snow fill the imperial courtyards. Great, glistening icicles hang from the eaves of the palaces. The lakes are frozen over. The Forbidden City lies behind its towering, protective walls of ocher red. The halls and temples, gardens and alleyways wait, silent, suspended in night.
At 4 a.m., a sign. Light from a candle flickers in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. The emperor of the Qing, whose vast territories we today call China, is awake. The palaces stir. Imperial eunuchs—men castrated when boys—in long, silken gowns run to their posts, their reedy cries echoing through the halls: Wansuiye jixiang! Great fortune to His Majesty! Eunuchs rush from the kitchens to the emperor's sleeping quarters bearing a pail of hot water. The emperor descends from his kang, the raised, heated bed, and chambermaids bustle in to tidy his quilts. The emperor ...
Fragile Cargo checks all the right boxes for top-notch nonfiction: the author's subject is a fascinating one, covering a little-known aspect of history; the curators he features are sympathetic, hard-working men with a challenging and important task; and he includes just enough information about China's history to set context, but not so much that his subject gets lost amid the intricacies of Chinese politics...continued
Full Review
(936 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Alexi Kaye Campbell, writer of feature film Woman in Gold
A riveting read... With his meticulously researched and detailed writing, Adam Brookes takes us on a compelling journey through this extraordinary chapter of Chinese history. Fragile Cargo reads like a thriller... Gripping stuff. John Keay, author of China: A History
Adam Brookes has an eye for a great story and knows how to tell it. Fragile Cargo cannot fail to delight... I enjoyed it enormously. Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Star
A compelling story of art, war and adventure. An extraordinary odyssey of the imperial treasures of the Forbidden City, protected by heroic and remarkable curators...Superb.
At the end of Fragile Cargo, Adam Brookes' excellent history about how China's cultural treasures were protected during World War II, the author informs his readers that the finest items in the imperial collection were moved to Taipan, Taiwan. They remain there to this day, an ongoing point of contention between Taiwan and China.
During the first half of the 20th century, China underwent massive cultural and political changes. The country had been ruled by emperors for millennia, but revolt and colonization by Western countries dramatically weakened imperial powers. In 1912, Nationalist revolutionaries forced the last emperor to abdicate, and the Republic of China was born. The new government decided to make the vast imperial grounds...
If you liked Fragile Cargo, try these:
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
by Zhuqing Li
Published 2023
Sisters separated by war forge new identities as they are forced to choose between family, nation, and their own independence.
by Nicole Mones
Published 2015
In this stunningly researched novel, Nicole Mones not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese jazz age, but also weaves in a startling true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
