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📘 Book Talk: Her Lotus Year with Paul French (📍🇬🇧 London)
📅 Date: Saturday, July 19, 2025
🕒 Time:
– TMS Annual General Meeting: 2:00 PM BST
– Book Talk: 3:30 PM BST
📍 Locations:
– AGM: Caffè Tropea, Russell Square, London WC1B 5EH
– Book Talk: Djam Lecture Theatre, SOAS University of London, 10 Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG
🌐 Organizer: The Meridian Society (TMS)
Languages: English
Registration & Info: Please RSVP by July 1 via email: themeridiansociety@gmail.com
🏷️ Description:
The Meridian Society’s Annual General Meeting will take place at 2:00 PM at Caffè Tropea, followed by a public talk by author and China historian Paul French at 3:30 PM at SOAS University of London. French will present his new book Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson.
Drawing on newly accessed archives and his expertise in Chinese history, French explores the transformative year Wallis Simpson spent in China during the 1920s—a chapter that would later influence how she was perceived during the British abdication crisis. The book sheds light on her time in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing during a turbulent period in Chinese history.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
👤 About the Speaker:
Paul French is the award-winning author of Midnight in Peking and City of Devils. With deep expertise in 20th-century China, French brings fresh insight into overlooked episodes of history. He lived and worked in Shanghai for many years and now resides in London.