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Book Cover
PRINTED MTL
Author Kaufman, Jonathan, author.

Title The last kings of Shanghai : the rival Jewish dynasties that helped create modern China / Jonathan Kaufman.

Publisher [New York, New York] : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, [2020]

Copies

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
 Brewer Adult Nonfiction  951.132 Kaufman    DUE 04-16-24  
 Northeast HL Nonfiction  920 KAU    AVAILABLE  
 Old Town Non Fiction  951 KAU    AVAILABLE  
 Wells PL Nonfiction  951.132 KAUFMAN    AVAILABLE  
Physical Description xxxi, 350 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents The Patriarch -- Empire of the Sons-and Opium -- Laura and Elly -- Shanghai Rising -- The Impresario -- "Me Voila Therefore Walking a Tightrope" -- War -- "I Gave Up India and China Gave Me Up" -- The Reckoning -- The Last Taipan -- Back on the Bund.
Summary "An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936. The Cathay Hotel, located on the city's famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. Built by Victor Sassoon--billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty--the hotel hosts a who's who of global celebrities: Noel Coward has written a draft of Private Lives in his suite, Charlie Chaplin entertained his wife-to-be, and the American socialite Wallis Simpson reportedly posed for dirty photographs. A few miles away, Mao and the nascent communist party have been plotting revolution before being forced to flee the city. By the 1930's, the Sassoons had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by only one other dynasty--the Kadoories. These two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable story of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival. He also tells the triumphant story of how they joined to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism."-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Jews -- China -- Shanghai -- History.
Jews -- China -- Shanghai -- Social life and customs.
Shanghai (China) -- Ethnic relations.
Sassoon, David, 1792-1864 -- Family.
Sassoon family.
Shanghai (China) -- Biography.
Jewish businesspeople -- China -- Shanghai -- Biography.
Alternate Title Rival Jewish dynasties that helped create modern China