Journalist Adam Brookes tells the story of the imperial collection of China and efforts to preserve it. In particular, throughout the majority of the book we see the collection packed, shipped, and transported around China in search of safety from WWII's violence.

What's good: Actions speak louder than words. In this case, the dedication of the archivists to preserving their cultural memory shouts at us--everything they endured, every effort they took, is proof of that. While many figures are spotlit throughout the text, director Ma Heng is the quiet center of the book. His life story--and his suffering--underline this.

What's iffier: The action of the book seems to a slow-moving chase. It is therefore necessary for the reader to remind themselves not to grow impatient, but to focus instead on the individual figures described. It's easy to get caught up in thinking the book is about the imperial collection, when instead it is really about the dedication of the academic infrastructure to their cultural past.

With gratitude to the publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read an ARC of this book.

A gripping account of China's attempts to protect its cultural artifacts during WWII.

As Japanese soldiers approached Beijing in 1931, China's government decided that the rarest treasures housed in the city's Palace Museum needed to be evacuated to safer territory. Overseen by Palace Museum director Ma Heng, some 63,500 irreplaceable artifacts were packed into nearly 20,000 cases and sent on a journey that would span thousands of miles and many years. Novelist Adam Brookes makes his first foray into nonfiction with his magnificent chronicle of their efforts, Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City. Brooke's narrative tells the tale not only of the objects' harrowing travels, but also China's history just before, during and after World War II, as well as the lives of Ma Heng and the three assistant curators -- Chuang Yen, Ouyang Daoda and Na Chih-liang- who were instrumental in the items' safe passage.

The author begins by explaining why such extraordinary measures were taken to protect the antiquities. The Republic of China was still a young country, created when the ruling dynasty was overthrown in 1912. The new government sought to foster an "awareness of nationhood," Brookes writes, "a way to conceive of themselves not as subjects of an empire but as citizens of a modern nation-state, sharing a common identity that transcended yawning differences in class, region, and language." The Palace Museum and the works within it were meant to help create a unified national identity by giving people a sense of shared national history. The objects were a physical manifestation of that common heritage and as such were of vital importance.

It's astonishing to read Brookes' account of how meticulously the curators documented the Palace Museum collection (the full inventory included 1,170,000 pieces and ran to 28 volumes) and the extreme care they took in packing the items. The antiquities "faced assorted dangers – bombing, plunder by Japanese troops or by bandits, weather, damp, pests, poor roads, turbulent rivers, rotted joists, and accidents of all kinds – but poor packing posed the greatest danger of them all." The author goes into fascinating depth about several irreplaceable artifacts and how each type of object was fastidiously stowed away. For example, the Stone Drums of Qin - 10 ancient, engraved boulders, each weighing half a ton - took months to prepare for shipping. Curators soaked delicate cotton-based paper in water. "Then, using tweezers, they inserted scraps of the wet paper very gently under and around [the] fragile, flaking slivers of rock that threatened to fall away. Once the wet paper dried, it would act as a sort of cement to seal in place the vulnerable areas on the stone surface and preserve what remained of the inscriptions." The effort expended making sure no item was damaged while being transported absolutely boggles the mind. Keeping the collection safe while on the move was a monumental task, taking years of non-stop, exacting care by the diligent, single-minded curators.

The collection was moved from Beijing to Nanjing and then to Shanghai, where the curators thought the cases would be safe in Shanghai's International Settlement and its French Concession – two areas reserved for Western governments. It soon became apparent, however, that the territories weren't as sacrosanct as believed, so the cases were returned to Nanjing. As Japanese troops pushed farther inland, Nanjing became equally unsafe, and so the items needed to be transported yet again. Because time was of the essence and the cases needed to be evacuated as soon as possible, they were split into three separate consignments, each taking a different route to reach sanctuary in China's west. The last of the 17,000 cases left the city just 10 days before it fell to the Japanese. The author is at his best here as he relays the obstacles each team had to overcome to ultimately find safe storage for the treasures. It's a nerve-wracking account, relating near disasters on treacherous mountain roads and turbulent rivers; Brookes' experience as a thriller writer is evident.

The book loses a little steam as WWII ends; some of the urgency behind the collection's movements begins to abate as the narrative's focus shifts to the ascendancy of China's Communist Party. It remains a very compelling read, however, although more informative than nail-biting at that point.

For me, 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. It's a masterful work, and one I highly recommend to most audiences, but especially to those interested in WWII history in general and Chinese history in particular. It would make a good selection for history-based book groups as well.

Adam Brookes' Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City is a somewhat more hopeful The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War for the treasures of China’s Forbidden City before, during and after world war II. A story of protection from looting, the destruction of total war and the hazards of the natural world. Under the leadership of Ma Heng, director of the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, curators were able to pack, ship and care for more than 17,000 cases of objects for almost seventeen years.

Brookes looks at the long history of these collections, beginning with how they were assembled by the Chinese Emperors before they shifted to a museum collection in the 1920s. He also details the processes or craftsmanship necessary to create select works of art. The first task of the museum workers was just to inventory these objects eventually detailing more than a million paintings, sculptures, works of porcelain, books and other rare items.

In the raising of tensions between China and Japan at the beginning of the 1930s, the museum administration made the decision to move the collections out of the path of war. To do so they had to figure out the best ways to package the collections, where to send them, and how to pay for it all. These collections then journey in multiple directions under the care of the dedicated staff, sometimes having to move multiple times. On their travels, the collections dealt with the hazards of weather and climate, topography or depredation by molds or insects.

Brookes describes not only the travels of the collections, but the lives of their main caretakers during the hardship of the war. It does not shy from the cost of war, describing the effects of bombings, unchecked fires, starvation, diseases, occupation and societal collapse.

A harrowing survival story that concerns itself with the long scope of history and myriad challenges to its preservation. Beginning with creation of the works and the Imperial collection through to the ideological challenges of Chinese Communism in the latter half of the 20th century.

A really interesting true story about the quest to save treasures of the Forbidden City in China during WWII. I feel like most books, even nonfiction, that people gravitate towards for WWII are very Euro-centric so it was nice to see the focus elsewhere.

In my opinion this is a very informative book relating to Chinese history overall with a brief description of what life was like in the Forbidden city where the emperor and his family lived and what day to day life was like for the emperor. There are many buildings within these walls, and some are to house the national treasures with some being obtain by war, by gift, the emperor having commissioned to be made or some made by the emperor himself. Many of the national treasures and the inside of the forbidden city were never meant for public view. But this changed as various wars and or conflicts lead to artifacts starting to be plunder. Around the 1920's and 1930's and 40's with Japan wanting to be the dominant country in the Asian countries along with the rise of Communism there was a very real threat to these treasures which i believe totaled over a couple of hundred thousand artifacts. As you will read there are some individuals who are tasked with opening the walls and taking inventory of the artifacts, best way to pack them and how and where to move them. This is the main focus of the story of the moving of these artifacts over a ten-year period always one step away from being harmed by war. It is amazing to see the dedication regardless of the turmoil in the country that some of the individuals had in protecting these treasures. It also is amazing to realize how many more of these artifacts could have been lost or at least damaged and ruined forever. There are some points that this gets a little dry in the reading but overall, it is a good read that many may not even know about.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for access to this arc.

When I read the blurb for this book, I knew it was something I wanted to read. These impossible but true events are my catnip. And this is the kind of book I love, one that informs me and also makes me hurry to the internet to look deeper into a subject – or just search out images of the priceless art lovingly saved during a time of world destruction.

When the last Emperor of China left the Forbidden City, the arduous task of cataloging the immense art collection there – the product of centuries, millennia, of Chinese culture – began. In freezing cold temperatures, a legion of scholars, professors, and others worked to list and tag each item from the 2500 year old Stone Drums to delicate carved jade to painstakingly fired Ming red porcelain to beautifully painted silk scrolls to rare books to priceless calligraphy. From eras before China was thought of as one nation, these items carried immense cultural heritage and were irreplaceable.

But not long after the new Palace Museum was opened, those in charge of it realized that danger was coming and they would need to protect it from the foreseen ravages of war. With over a million listed items, there was no way to move it all so impossible choices were made with the best of the best being chosen. How to pack all this to protect the “fragile cargo?” Go to the still unpacked boxes of Imperial china that had been sent to the Palace. Tight packing, rice husks, and wads of cotton batting were used to bind everything so tightly that even traveling over rough roads, up raging rivers, and across icy mountain switchback roads items remained safe.

Moved, moved, moved, shipped around the world for an exhibit in London, shipped back in a ship that ran aground, moved, split up, moved to the Soviet Union for an exhibit only months before the German invasion, shipped back, moved again often staying just days ahead of Japanese troops or desperately trying to avoid Japanese bombers, the curators begged, borrowed, implored, and demanded the help of many to tote, haul, and carry the carefully labeled boxes to places of safety. All the while the country was in the throes of a vicious war that ravaged towns, cities, and rural China costing millions of lives.

The book is so much more than moving the collection though. It’s about the dedication of the museum staff as they shepherded the boxes, unpacked and checked the items, repacked the boxes, then moved them yet again. It’s about the sacrifices they and their family members made to this endeavor. It’s about the horrors endured by the Chinese people during the Japanese invasion and then again as the PLA and the Republicans fought over what kind of nation China was to become after the war. It’s written succinctly and well with neither too little nor too much detail. I wish that the arc I read had illustrations of some of the artwork mentioned but after meandering through the websites of the National Taiwan Museum and the National Museum of China, I can see why the objects mentioned were deemed so important and saved at all costs. B+

This book is a story of how a group of courageous museum curators saved the collection of Chinese artifacts that belonged to the several dynasties of Chinese emperors. Early in the XXth century the collection was housed in the Forbidden city, in Beijing. In the 1930s collection was packed in crates and started on the treacherous journey to escape its capture by the Japanese. The second part of the book talks about the fate of the collection curators, mainly Ma Heng, under the communist regime, the harsh and humiliating treatment he suffered for his devotion to the collection he didn't live to see again. The book is a fascinating read. The author writes that this story has never been published in English, so the readers will learn new information about Chinese history and Chinese art in addition to enjoying Adam Brookes' ability to combine the elements of a thriller with a picturesque writing style. This is a great book to offer those art and history lovers who prefer fiction but might want to branch out and try a nonfiction book.

Wow. I believe now that a TARDIS can exist, since I've just read a book that is much bigger on the inside than it's size would indicate.

This is the story of protecting a national art collection during turbulent times in China, but the book goes well beyond dry facts and figures about the transportation of the artwork over many miles in search of a safe haven. We learn about the artists and the times they lived in. We learn about the treasures of the Forbidden City and the people who gave their all to catalog and protect a staggering number of art objects.

This meticulously researched book puts us right there in the Forbidden City, shivering alongside the catalogers, risking frostbite and struggling with pots of frozen ink while pushing forward with their herculean task. This job took its toll on many people, sometimes in heartbreaking ways.

And those travels - Indiana Jones could only dream of such adventures! The mishap with the stone drum... well, I will not spoil that in advance. You need to gasp with surprise just as I did.

This book needs to be shelved in the libraries of as many universities and museums as possible, and soon. History is fascinating, when the stories are told by a passionate, learned storyteller. Adam Brookes is one of those, and he has my thanks for an outstanding experience.

My thanks to author Adam Brookes, Atria Books, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.