The Last Kings of Shanghai

Author: Jonathan Kaufman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735224439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
"In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books 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 The Sassoons and the Kadoories 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. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history 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.

Middle Class Shanghai

Author: Cheng Li
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780815739098
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In Middle Class Shanghai, Cheng Li, who grew up in Shanghai during the oppressive years of Mao's Cultural Revolution, argues that American policymakers must not lose sight of the expansive dynamism and diversity in present-day China. The caricature of China as a monolithic Communist apparatus set on exporting its ideology and development model is simplistic and misguided. Drawing on empirical research in the realms of higher education, avant-garde art, architecture, and law, Li's unique study highlights the strong, constructive impact of bilateral exchanges. Combining eclectic human stories with striking new data analysis, Li's book addresses the possibility that the development of China's class structure and cosmopolitan culture--exemplified and led by Shanghai--could provide a force for reshaping U.S.-China engagement. Both countries should build upon the deep cultural and educational exchanges that have bound them together for decades. Li concludes that U.S. .

Last Boat Out of Shanghai

Author: Helen Zia
Publisher:
ISBN: 034552232X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 545

Book Description
"The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution--a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao's proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have opened the story to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves the story of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Young Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father's dark wartime legacy, must choose between escaping Hong Kong or navigating the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome young exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation in order to continue his studies in the U.S. while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America"--

Champions Day

Author: James Carter
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0393635945
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
How a single day revealed the history and foreshadowed the future of Shanghai. It is November 12, 1941, and the world is at war. In Shanghai, just weeks before Pearl Harbor, thousands celebrate the birthday of China’s founding father, Sun Yat-sen, in a new city center built to challenge European imperialism. Across town, crowds of Shanghai residents from all walks of life attend the funeral of China’s wealthiest woman, the Chinese-French widow of a Baghdadi Jewish businessman whose death was symbolic of the passing of a generation that had seen Shanghai’s rise to global prominence. But it is the racetrack that attracts the largest crowd of all. At the center of the International Settlement, the heart of Western colonization—but also of Chinese progressivism, art, commerce, cosmopolitanism, and celebrity—Champions Day unfolds, drawing tens of thousands of Chinese spectators and Europeans alike to bet on the horses. In a sharp and lively snapshot of the day’s events, James Carter recaptures the complex history of Old Shanghai. Champions Day is a kaleidoscopic portrait of city poised for revolution.

This is China

Author: Haiwang Yuan
Publisher: Berkshire Publishing
ISBN: 1933782765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Book Description
This Is China contains, in brief, everything we need to know about 5,000 years of history, 30 years of "opening," and a future that promises to shape the 21st century for all of us. Drawn from the vast resources of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, this concise 120-page book is recommended for classroom use, curriculum development, and student review.

The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai

Author: Bangqing Han
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231122691
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 588

Book Description
Courtesans, desire & the denizens of the Shanghai underworld are just some of the elements in Han Bangqing's novel of late imperial China, published in 1892 & now available in English for the first time.

Last Days in Shanghai

Author: Casey Walker
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619025906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
Luke Slade, a young Congressional aide, begins this business trip to China like all other international travel he's endured with "Leo the Lyin'": buried under a slew of diplomatic runarounds, non–functioning cell phones, and humiliation from the Congressman at every turn. But on their first night in Beijing, their trip is plunged into a deeper chaos: Leo goes on a drunken bender and disappears into the night. Unsure what dubious business his boss had planned, Luke must piece together the Congressman's lies while maintaining appearances with their Chinese contacts. Amidst the confusion, a little bleary from jet lag and alcohol, Luke receives a briefcase full of money from the mayor of a provincial Chinese city. Luke accepts the "gift," but when he later reconsiders and wants to return the cash, he discovers even more anxiety–inducing news. There's been a mysterious death, and he appears to be under surveillance by Chinese police. As Luke tries to navigate a complex minefield of corruption, he must also confront his own role in the events. Unwitting marionette? Fall guy? Or perhaps someone more capable of moral compromise than he would have liked to believe? Last Days in Shanghai is an unforgettable debut by a writer to watch. It's both a hold–on–to–your–seat thriller and a pitch–perfect exploration of present day China—the country's rapacious capitalism, the shocking boom of its cities and the wholesale eradication of its traditions.

Shanghai Modern

Author: Leo Ou-fan Lee
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674805518
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
In the midst of ChinaÕs wild rush to modernize, a surprising note of reality arises: Shanghai, it seems, was once modern indeed, a pulsing center of commerce and art in the heart of the twentieth century. This book immerses us in the golden age of Shanghai urban culture, a modernity at once intrinsically Chinese and profoundly anomalous, blending new and indigenous ideas with those flooding into this Òtreaty portÓ from the Western world. A preeminent specialist in Chinese studies, Leo Ou-fan Lee gives us a rare wide-angle view of Shanghai culture in the making. He shows us the architecture and urban spaces in which the new commercial culture flourished, then guides us through the publishing and filmmaking industries that nurtured a whole generation of artists and established a bold new style in urban life known as modeng. In the work of six writers of the time, particularly Shi Zhecun, Mu Shiying, and Eileen Chang, Lee discloses the reflection of ShanghaiÕs urban landscapeÑforeign and familiar, oppressive and seductive, traditional and innovative. This work acquires a broader historical and cosmopolitan context with a look at the cultural links between Shanghai and Hong Kong, a virtual genealogy of Chinese modernity from the 1930s to the present day.

Life and Death in Shanghai

Author: Cheng Nien
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802145167
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 561

Book Description
A woman who spent more than six years in solitary confinement during Communist China's Cultural Revolution discusses her time in prison. Reissue. A New York Times Best Book of the Year.

The Book of Shanghai

Author: Wang Anyi
Publisher: Comma Press
ISBN: 1912697378
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
As the end of the world arrives in downtown Shanghai, one man’s only wish is to return a library book... When a publisher agrees to let a star author use his company’s attic to write in, little does he suspect this will become the author’s permanent residence... As Shanghai succumbs to a seemingly apocalyptic deluge, a man takes refuge in his bathtub, only to find himself, moments later, floating through the city's streets... The characters in this literary exploration of one of the world’s biggest cities are all on a mission. Whether it is responding to events around them, or following some impulse of their own, they are defined by their determination – a refusal to lose themselves in a city that might otherwise leave them anonymous, disconnected, alone. From the neglected mother whose side-hustle in collecting sellable waste becomes an obsession, to the schoolboy determined to end a long-standing feud between his family and another, these characters show a defiance that reminds us why Shanghai – despite its hurtling economic growth –remains an epicentre for individual creativity.