The Last Kings of Shanghai

A book which is almost sure to teach you something you didn't know about Chinese history, in this case, the story of two families of refugees from the Middle East who settled in Shanghai 175 years ago - the Sassoons and the Kadoories. It traces their history and influence through the Opium Wars, foreign interventions, multiple revolutions and up until modern day. I've visited Shanghai multiple times over the last decade, and always thought of it as a very Chinese city, oblivious to the possibility it had such exotic origins.

A great deal has been written about the Jewish refugees who flooded into Shanghai during World War II, but that’s not the case with the story of the wealthy Sephardic Jewish families who arrived in the early days of opium trading and built fabulous fortunes. In Last Kings of Shanghai, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jonathan Kaufman weaves the epic tale of the Sassoons and the Kadoories, stretching from Baghdad to Shanghai to London and Hong Kong. It’s a story of business acumen and political intrigue, of wartime survival and the choices that saw one family perpetuate its wealth and… show more.

This is a fun read about a forgotten history. The writer, a former Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal reporter, masterfully tells the tale of two Baghdadi Jewish families – Sasoon and Kadoorie—who helped shape the economy and society of Shanghai. The families are both heroes and villains. Much of their money came from the opium trade, but they also helped turn Shanghai into a Jewish refuge from the Nazis.