THE LAST KINGS OF SHANGHAI
- Jun 1, 2020
- 1 min read
From Kirkus Reviews
Historical account of two significant Jewish families who built wildly prosperous financial empires in Shanghai and Hong Kong that lasted for nearly two centuries.
From opium trading to banking to real estate, the Sassoon and Kadoorie families “helped open the world to China—and opened China to the world.” As Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Kaufman notes, they were “taipans,” alternately revered, feared, and loathed by the Chinese, who have largely “obscured” their stories since 1949. The author—who covered the Tiananmen Square massacre and also served as the China bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal from 2002 to 2005—digs deep to unearth their personal histories, creating an absorbing multigenerational saga.
