"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 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 and Charlie Chaplin has entertained his wife-to-be. And a few miles away, Mao and the nascent Communist Party have been plotting revolution. By the 1930s, 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 175 years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and losing nearly everything as the Communists swept into power. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at 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. The book lays bare the moral compromises of the Kadoories and the Sassoons--and their exceptional foresight, success, and generosity. At the height of World War II, they joined together to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. Though their stay in China started out as a business opportunity, the country became a home they were reluctant to leave, even on the eve of revolution. The lavish buildings they built and the booming businesses they nurtured continue to define Shanghai and Hong Kong to this day. As the United States confronts China's rise, and China grapples with the pressures of breakneck modernization and global power, the long-hidden odysseys of the Sassoons and the Kadoories hold a key to understanding the present moment.

'A masterpiece of research, The Last Kings of Shanghai is a vivid and fascinating story of wealth, family intrigue, and political strategy on the world stage from colonialism to communism to globalized capitalism' Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era 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 'glamour' photographs. A few miles away, Mao and the nascent Communist party have been plotting revolution before being forced to flee the city. By the 1930s, 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 and 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 Kings of Shanghai, 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.

KINGS OF SHANGHAI tells the story of two Jewish families - the Sassoons and the Kadoories - who immigrated to China in the mid nineteenth century and became dynasties of a sort, standing astride Chinese business and politics for more than 175 years.The Kadoories were aristocrats while the Sassoons were essentially royalty, overseeing and governing the Jewish community in Baghdad across many generations. Forced to flee in the nineteenth century, the Sassoons spread out over central Asia, with two sons going to Shanghai following the Opium Wars to establish a business empire that would launch them into the upper echelons of the British establishment. The Kadoories followed soon after, their patriarch Elly first working for the Sassoons and then, after being fired, establishing a rival and equally successful trading company of his own.Jonathan Kaufman traces the intersecting stories of the two families over the course of the next century as they gathered strength and influence through the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, weathered the fall of the emperor, blossomed during the Jazz Age and civil war, and resisted Japan's brutal occupation and the ensuing Communist takeover.KINGS OF SHANGHAI is at once the intimate story of two families and a sweeping account of how modern Shanghai was born.

Turnamen Triwizard akan diselenggarakan di Hogwarts. Hanya penyihir berusia di atas tujuh belas yang diizinkan ikut - namun itu tidak menghentikan Harry bermimpi bahwa dirinya akan memenangkan kompetisi. Lalu pada acara Hallowe'en, ketika Piala Api menjatuhkan pilihannya, Harry terpana mengetahui namanya adalah salah satu yang dipilih oleh piala sihir tersebut. Dia akan menghadapi tugas menentang maut, naga, dan penyihir Gelap, namun dengan bantuan sahabat-sahabatnya, Ron dan Hermione, dia mungkin berhasil lolos - tetap hidup!

'Shanghai's champion storyteller - He grips his reader to the end' Economist 'Gripping, breakneck ultra-noir reminiscent of vintage Ellroy' David Peace, author of Red or Dead 'If you love Richard Lloyd Parry and David Grann, don't miss City of Devils' Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me 1930s Shanghai could give Chicago a run for its money. In the years before the Japanese invaded, the city was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, fortunes made - and lost. 'Lucky' Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison in the States, spotted a craze for gambling and rose to become the Slot King of Shanghai. Ruler of the clubs in that day was 'Dapper' Joe Farren - a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls. His chorus lines rivalled Ziegfeld's and his name was in lights above the city's biggest casino. In 1940 they bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and genocide. They thought they ruled Shanghai; but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction they left in their wake. Shanghai was their playground for a flickering few years, a city where for a fleeting moment even the wildest dreams seemed possible. In the vein of true crime books whose real brilliance is the recreation of a time and place, this is an impeccably researched narrative non-fiction told with superb energy and brio, as if James Ellroy had stumbled into a Shanghai cathouse.

The pulsing beat of its nightlife has long drawn travelers to the streets of Shanghai, where the night scene is a crucial component of the city’s image as a global metropolis. In Shanghai Nightscapes, sociologist James Farrer and historian Andrew David Field examine the cosmopolitan nightlife culture that first arose in Shanghai in the 1920s and that has been experiencing a revival since the 1980s. Drawing on over twenty years of fieldwork and hundreds of interviews, the authors spotlight a largely hidden world of nighttime pleasures—the dancing, drinking, and socializing going on in dance clubs and bars that have flourished in Shanghai over the last century. The book begins by examining the history of the jazz-age dance scenes that arose in the ballrooms and nightclubs of Shanghai’s foreign settlements. During its heyday in the 1930s, Shanghai was known worldwide for its jazz cabarets that fused Chinese and Western cultures. The 1990s have seen the proliferation of a drinking, music, and sexual culture collectively constructed to create new contact zones between the local and tourist populations. Today’s Shanghai night scenes are simultaneously spaces of inequality and friction, where men and women from many different walks of life compete for status and attention, and spaces of sociability, in which intercultural communities are formed. Shanghai Nightscapes highlights the continuities in the city’s nightlife across a turbulent century, as well as the importance of the multicultural agents of nightlife in shaping cosmopolitan urban culture in China’s greatest global city. To listen to an audio diary of a night out in Shanghai with Farrer and Field, click here: http://n.pr/1VsIKAw.

Describes the formation of the Peking opera in late Qing and its subsequent rise and re-creation as the epitome of the Chinese national culture in Republican era China. This book looks into the lives of some of the opera's key actors, and explores their methods for earning a living, and their status in an ever-changing society.

The seventh novel in the Ava Lee series finds Ava caught up in the election for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies. It’s been three months since Uncle’s passing, and Ava is finally ready to begin her new life as a partner with May Ling Wong and her sister-in-law Amanda in their Three Sisters venture capital firm. Ava travels to Shanghai to hear a pitch on a new investment possibility: the creation of a fashion line by Clark and Gillian Po. She also meets with the mysterious Xu, a young man Uncle had been mentoring and who is the head of the triad in Shanghai. Xu makes an audacious business proposal that she and May Ling are compelled to consider. Meanwhile, separately and privately, he confides to Ava that he intends to run for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies and attempts to recruit her as his adviser. Against her will, Ava becomes enmeshed in triad warfare and her future is threatened...