The Business of Culture examines the rise of Chinese "cultural entrepreneurs," businesspeople who risked financial well-being and reputation by investing in multiple cultural enterprises in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rich in biographical detail, the interlinked case studies featured in this volume introduce three distinct archetypes: the cultural personality, the tycoon, and the collective enterprise. The studies include Law Bun, a Hong Kong pulp fiction and film magnate, Aw Boon Haw, the "tiger" behind the Tiger Brand pharmaceutical company, and the Shaw Brothers, filmmakers who drew thousands of people out each night to watch movies in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, and beyond. These portraits reveal how rapidly evolving technologies and growing transregional ties created fertile conditions for business success in the cultural sphere. They also highlight strategies used by cultural entrepreneurs around the world today.

Christopher Rea is an associate professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia.