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The Last Kings of Shanghai

The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China

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The Last Kings of Shanghai

Auteur(s): Jonathan Kaufman
Narrateur(s): Joel Richards
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À propos de cet audio

"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 20th-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 18,000 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.

©2020 Jonathan Kaufman (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Affaires et carrières Asie Judaïsme Monde Mariage Spirituel Redevances Entreprise Roi Guerre Impérialisme Hôtel Autodétermination Jewish History Modern China
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Ce que les auditeurs disent de The Last Kings of Shanghai

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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Au global
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating story of two families with origins in Badpgdad

So many revelations of world history and particular that of the Jews and their saviours in Shanghai before and during WW2 and relationships formed with CHINA

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Hometown Far Away From Me

As a designer born in Shanghai in 1970s, The Sassoons and the Kadoorie were among those abstract names hidden behind the historic buildings I sketched in the city. Thank you so much to let me know better about my hometown. I got to know better about it when I come out of China. So sorry to see that the Red guard has finally crossed the bord to HK.

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