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book jacket
BOOK
Title The last kings of Shanghai : the rival Jewish dynasties that helped create modern China / Jonathan Kaufman
Imprint [New York, New York] : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, [2020]

LIBRARY / MAP CALL NUMBER STATUS MESSAGE
 Stadsbibl:Slottet vån 4 Geografi och historia  951 engelska    CHECK SHELF  ---
Descript xxxi, 350 pages illustrations, map 24 cm
Note Includes bibliographical references and index
"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 Sassoon family
Kadoorie family
Kadoorie family.
Sassoon family.
Kadoorie, Elly, 1865-1944 -- Family
Sassoon, David, 1792-1864.
Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Museum
Historia
Judar
Judiska affärsmän
Etniska relationer
HISTORY / Asia / China.
Ethnic relations.
Families.
Jewish businesspeople.
Jews.
Jews -- Social life and customs.
Kina -- Shanghai
China -- Shanghai.
Biografier
Biographies.
History.
Classmark 951/.1320410923924
Add Title Rival Jewish dynasties that helped create modern China
ISBN/ISSN 9780735224438 (paperback)
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