The daughter of a missionary doctor, Claire Malcolm Lintilhac was born in China,
became a nurse there, and lived and worked through China’s whole momentous first
half of the 20th century. Opening a unique window into the making of the world’s
newest yet oldest superpower, China in Another Time — with over 160 photos and
drawings — is Claire’s own story.
A remarkable true story that opens a window on the dramatic decades that
made today’s China. Born in China’s interior as the daughter of a Canadian medical missionary, Claire
Malcolm Lintilhac learned fluent Chinese, became a traveling nurse and lived through
the whole momentous first half of China’s 20th century. After her family barely escaped
the bloody Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Claire witnessed firsthand the years of civil war that
followed China’s short-lived Nationalist Revolution of 1911. In the 1930s — as Claire
cared for patients both Western and Chinese, fell in love and started a family — she
survived Japan’s two horrific attacks on Shanghai, and her British husband Lin was
interned by the Japanese in a Shanghai camp during World War II. In 1949 Claire
watched as China’s greatest city fell to the Communist Party, and in 1950 she, Lin and
their son Philip finally left the country they loved. Illustrated with over 160 photos and
drawings, China in Another Time is Claire’s vividly personal account of China’s struggle
to become its own modern nation, from the last imperial dynasty to the advent of
Communist rule. With an introduction by eminent China scholar Nicholas Clifford,
professor emeritus at Middlebury College.
