Macartney's Mission

Singer draws from surviving diaries and records on both the Chinese and English sides to tell the extraordinary and suspenseful story of the Earl of Macartney's embassy to China - a mission which was intended to open up relations with the Emperor but ended in one of history's great putdowns. The book is tied in to a major exhibition held at the British Museum from mid-1992 to early 1993, on the Macartney embassy.