The book is a well researched look at the Chinese Emigrant society of the nineteenth century in San Francisco, California. As a popular work there is a tendency to sensationalize the narrative. ( )

This was another book read for the sake of novel research as I delve into San Francisco as it was before the 1906 earthquake. In particular, I wanted to learn more about the Tongs: their structure, their names, how they functioned, and so on. That information isn't available online.

Hatchet Men was originally published in 1962; it has now been re-released by a small press. There were numerous typographical errors throughout the book that sometimes distracted me as I read.

Did the book supply me with the information I wanted? Yes. It was a fascinating read and gave me the insights I wanted, down to hand signals, rituals, and Chinese phrases. I had no idea that the Tongs (or anyone else a century ago) used chain mail as bullet-proof vests! I can also use key words from the text to search more on my own.

It's by no means a perfect book, typos aside. It's a book written by a white man about Chinatown. He doesn't write with intimacy of the place or the people--more with a journalist's plain prose. It's not that he's outright anti-Chinese, more that it has the definite feel of an outsider looking in. Sometimes Hatchet Men felt repetitive, but it never bored me. I also worry about accuracy. At the end of the book, he quotes the propaganda figure for the death toll from the 1906 quake--a mere 450 fatalities. This is flat out wrong. There were probably singular buildings with death tolls that high.

That kind of "fact" makes me worry about the accuracy of other points, but the problem is that there just hasn't been much written on the specific subject of Tongs in San Francisco. I'm thankful for this resource and I'll have to follow up as much as I can. ( )