The history of Shanghai is brought to life in this work by Lynn Pan. The tumultuous events of the first half of the 20th century in China are told in this account through a number of interlocking portraits. Through their eyes, thoughts and actions, we gain a look into the unfolding of history.
The old Shanghai was a rich and cosmopolitan mixture of East and West and this engaging book offers a glimpse into that world through an assortment of photographs, newspaper clippings, cartoons, stamps, and other collectibles. Evoking different eras, this record also contains vintage advertisements, excerpts from travel guides, flyers handed out to ex-pats highlighting Shanghai’s international atmosphere, and often hilarious firsthand accounts from those who had the opportunity to live in or pass through this bustling trade port. The scrapbook format allows readers to either read from the start or flip through to any page to learn of the extraordinary layers and depth of the old-world city.
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 richly anecdotal guide to every street in Shanghai details many landmarks and stories associated with its best-known avenues. A definitive index to the street names of Shanghai, some of which have disappeared or been removed, allows historians, researchers, tourists, and the just plain curious to navigate the city in its pre-1949 incarnations, through the former International Settlement, French Concession, and External Roads area with a detailed map and alphabetical entry for every road. The book is lavishly illustrated with old advertising, images, and postcards of the streets and businesses, the bars and nightclubs, the people and characters of old Shanghai bringing alive the city in its previous heyday as the Pearl of the Orient.The Old Shanghai A-Zshould become the standard reference work as well as being an easy-to-use guide for researchers and visitors looking to recapture the glamour and uniqueness of old Shanghai. Paul Frenchis an analyst and writer who has worked in Shanghai for many years as a founder of Access Asia. His books includeCarl Crow: A Tough Old China HandandThrough the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium War to Mao.
"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.
"In the 1930s, Shanghai 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. 'Dapper' Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld's. 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."--Jacket
A complex mixture of traditional Chinese and foreign influences, and often the flashpoint for political and social change, Shanghai is Asia's largest city and a key financial centre. Packed with tales of traders and gangsters, artists and activists, missionaries and armies of labourers, thisconcise history focuses in particular on the period from Shanghai's heyday in the late-nineteenth century to the Communist take-over of 1949.
A walking tour of China’s Shanghai, this unique guide acquaints travelers with the city’s architecture and traditions. Written from the perspective of a native, this handbook presents the scenic and history-laden paths of Shanghai while revealing its people’s character as well as the grand and gaudy landmarks.