"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.
