This collection of Chinese photography contains over 350 vintage postcards from pre-communist China along with extensive historical background and commentary. Camel trains arriving at a city gate; the distinctive architecture of the Forbidden City, its pagodas, imperial buildings and temples; Manchu fashion, the Empress Dowager and the child emperor Puyi; street performers and foreign tourists--all come to life again in this extraordinary collection of rare and vintage postcards. Old Beijing: Postcards from the Imperial City offers a unique look at a vanished China and its storied capital once known as Peking. Containing unique black-and-white and hand-tinted cards that span Chinese history from the last years of Imperial China to the Japanese invasion of 1937, it is a treasure trove for historians, collectors, Sinophiles and anyone fascinated by Chinese culture and people from times past.