Shanghai in the wake of the First World War was one of the world's most dynamic, brutal and exciting cities a swarming metropolis of nightclubs, opium-dens, gambling, sex and murder. Threatened from within by gangsters, communists and nationalists, and from without by Chinese warlords and the Japanese military, the hold of the British-dominated administration seemed increasingly fragile.Robert Bickers' account of this corrupt and mesmerizing city is illuminated of a forgotten Englishman - a tough, resourceful policeman who stepped into the maelstrom of post-war Shanghai. Told through the moving story of one man's life and death while working for a governing class he could never belong to, Empire Made Me provides an intriguing glimpse into how the British Empire really worked.