This story, suspensefully told, is one of men who faced extraordinary challenges with courage and a strong sense of purpose. Against significant odds, they managed to transport thousands of crates containing hundreds of thousands of objects—priceless porcelain, jades, bronzes, paintings, calligraphy, books, and documents—by boat, truck, and train, to three locations in China’s hinterland, thereby protecting them from the invading Japanese.
Fragile Cargo focuses on how imperial artifacts under threat became national treasures, and especially on the people whose efforts ensured their survival. It misses, however, the opportunity to describe how the relevance of this collection has diminished due to the changed distribution of geopolitical power after the end of the Cold War.
