This is an epic multigenerational story of two rival dynasties—the Sassoons and the Kadoories—that flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as 20th-century China surged into the modern era from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Reed Kaufman.
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,” 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.
Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has written and reported on China for 30 years for The Boston Globe, where he covered the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square; The Wall Street Journal, where he served as China bureau chief from 2002 to 2005; and Bloomberg News. He is the author of “A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe” and “Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America,” winner of the National Jewish Book Award. He is director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston.
In partnership with the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, the Worcester JCC and Jewish Book Council.
+ More... - Less...
CJP provides the above links concerning third-party events for your convenience only. CJP has no control over the content of the linked-to websites or events they describe, and accepts no responsibility for the websites, including any advertising or products or services on or available from such sites, or for any loss or damage that may arise from your attending, or registering to attend, the described events. If you decide to access any of the third-party websites linked to below, you do so entirely at your own risk and subject to the terms and conditions of use for such websites and event attendance. CJP is not responsible or liable to you or any third party for the content or accuracy of any materials provided by any third parties. All statements and/or opinions expressed in the linked-to materials or at the described events, and all commentary, articles and other content provided at the third-party websites or at the events, are solely the opinions and the responsibility of the persons or entities operating the linked-to websites and events. The inclusion of any link on this website does not imply that CJP endorses the described event, or the linked-to website or its operator. MORE
