Review of Let There Be Light: How Electricity Made Modern Hong Kong By Mark L. Clifford.

Let There Be Light is a business history of the successful transfer and development of technology from Britain to Hong Kong, a city without local sources of coal or oil, with - out a manufacturing infrastructure able to produce the necessary equipment, and initially without the local engineering expertise needed to install and run that equipment. China Light and Power's (CLP) chief executive, Lawrence Kadoorie
(1899-1993) overcame these deficiencies. A Jewish businessman of Iraqi origin, he orchestrated continual improvements in the power system and encouraged Chinese factories to relocate from Shanghai and other cities. His investments and leadership helped Hong Kong to become both a manufacturing hub that employed thousands of refugees and a brightly lighted symbol of entrepreneurial capitalism, in contrast to the drab cities of Mao's China.