Catherine S. Chan, "Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong

(Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial

modernity through canine eyes, showing the many ways that dogs

involuntarily contributed to the modernization of twentieth-century Hong

Kong. Dr. Catherine S. Chan follows the piecemeal transplantation of

British animal humanitarianism as pedigree dogs accompanied hardening

class differences, dogmeat became a contested racial issue, and dogs

were roped into the long list of undesirables fabricated in the

so-called golden era of reforms following the social disturbances of the

1960s.

Dr.

Chan reveals a fragmented civilizing project that constructed dogs as