Here are 100 books that The Jacquinot Safe Zone fans have personally recommended if you like
The Jacquinot Safe Zone.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I fell in love with Asia as a young boy growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of my playmates were Asian Americans, and I was fascinated by the photos of their ancestors who had immigrated to America. That curiosity grew to a passion—one that led me to a long career as an Asian expert in the US Government. My first visit to China in the early 1980s took me to Shanghai before its incredible transformation. I knew much of its history, but walking the streets, seeing the buildings, and encountering its citizens made it real and left me wanting more. The history of Shanghai became a hobby.
I loved the way French, who won the Edgar Award and the CWA Gold Dagger for earlier books, painted a vivid picture of the Shanghai scene in the 1930s: the rich, the lowlifes, the gangsters, and schemers that gave the city the reputation it had.
Fast-paced and action-packed, this non-fiction work combined crime narrative and social history and took me to a time and place that is no more—one that I wished I had experienced firsthand.
'Shanghai's champion storyteller - He grips his reader to the end' Economist 'Gripping, breakneck ultra-noir reminiscent of vintage Ellroy' David Peace, author of Red or Dead 'If you love Richard Lloyd Parry and David Grann, don't miss City of Devils' Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me
1930s Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, oppression outrun, fortunes made - and lost.
This is the story of 'Lucky' Jack Riley, the Slot King of Shanghai, and 'Dapper' Joe Farren, owner of the greatest clubs and casinos. It tells of their…
I fell in love with Asia as a young boy growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of my playmates were Asian Americans, and I was fascinated by the photos of their ancestors who had immigrated to America. That curiosity grew to a passion—one that led me to a long career as an Asian expert in the US Government. My first visit to China in the early 1980s took me to Shanghai before its incredible transformation. I knew much of its history, but walking the streets, seeing the buildings, and encountering its citizens made it real and left me wanting more. The history of Shanghai became a hobby.
What Pan Ling does for the Chinese side of the story, Grescoe does for the Western expats living in 1930s Shanghai. I stayed in the Cathay in the 1980s long after it had been renamed Peace Hotel.
But the old glamour shined through and I wondered what incredible things the building had seen. Grescoe’s book took me back to its glory days and introduced me to the people—and some of their more notorious doings—who frequented its salons, bars, and restaurants.
On the eve of WWII, the foreign controlled port of Shanghai was the rendezvous for the twentieth century's most outlandish adventurers, all under the watchful eye of the illustrious Sir Victor Sassoon. Emily Hahn was a legendary New Yorker writer who would cover China for nearly fifty years, playing an integral part in opening Asia up to the West. But at the height of the Depression, Emily "Mickey" Hahn, who had just arrived in Shanghai nursing a broken heart after a disappointing affair with an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter, was convinced she would never love again. When she enters Sassoon's glamorous…
I fell in love with Asia as a young boy growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of my playmates were Asian Americans, and I was fascinated by the photos of their ancestors who had immigrated to America. That curiosity grew to a passion—one that led me to a long career as an Asian expert in the US Government. My first visit to China in the early 1980s took me to Shanghai before its incredible transformation. I knew much of its history, but walking the streets, seeing the buildings, and encountering its citizens made it real and left me wanting more. The history of Shanghai became a hobby.
I love history, especially of Asia and WWII, and Jordan’s intense and harrowing description of the “battle at the end of the street” in 1932 between the Chinese Nationalists and Japan moved me with its descriptions of the destruction and suffering it brought. Jordan is an academic, but this isn’t a stodgy history.
Jordan’s lively account covers not only the fighting, but the political maneuvering running up to it, efforts by the international community to control it, and the heroic stand by the Chinese Nineteen Route Army that gave the Japanese militarists all they could handle. I came away with not only a deeper understanding of WWII in China but greater respect for the Chinese soldier.
China's Trial by Firepresents the balanced history of how, ten years before Pearl Harbor, Japan tested modern China in a thirty-three-day war, now known as the Shanghai War of1932. Often obscured by the larger World War II, this history details how the Chinese fought from trenches against Japan's modern bombers and navy, and formed a defense that brought the country together for the first time. Unlike other histories' brief generalizations of the incident, this study traces the war from the initial January 28th Japanese marine raid on Chinese Shanghai. It also studies the roles played by the prevailing Japanese leaders,…
I fell in love with Asia as a young boy growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. Many of my playmates were Asian Americans, and I was fascinated by the photos of their ancestors who had immigrated to America. That curiosity grew to a passion—one that led me to a long career as an Asian expert in the US Government. My first visit to China in the early 1980s took me to Shanghai before its incredible transformation. I knew much of its history, but walking the streets, seeing the buildings, and encountering its citizens made it real and left me wanting more. The history of Shanghai became a hobby.
What a cast of characters Pan Ling introduced me to! There are Big Ears Du and Pockmarked Huang, notorious gangsters and leaders of the Green Gang; Wang Jingwei, the “Chinese Petain;” Dai Li, who headed the Chinese Nationalist secret police; and many others.
I love to read about faraway places in different times, and Pan Ling brought to life for me the incredibly complex and fascinating milieu of 1930s Shanghai through interlocking portraits of many key Chinese figures of the period. She made me want to meet these people—but preferably not in a dark alley.
Simo Laakkonen is director of Degree Program in Digital Culture, Landscape and Cultural Heritage, University of Turku, Finland. He is an environmental historian who has specialized among other things on the global environmental history of warfare during Industrial Age. He has coedited on this theme two special issues and three books, the latest one is The Resilient City in World War II: Urban Environmental Histories. He has selected five books that cover some main phases of the long environmental history of wars and mass violence.
Historiography of the Second World War has traditionally focused on European powers and/or the United States while such major actors as the Soviet Union and China have been largely neglected.
Dr. Muscolino’s book approaches the long Second World War in China by examiningthe interplay between landscapes, rural society, and “hydraulic warfare” in Henan Province in the central part of the country.
Here the Nationalist government in 1938 deliberately destroyed a dam in the Yellow River, which caused a catastrophic flood and famine that had long socioenvironmental percussions in Chinese society until Mao’s era.
This book explores the interplay between war and environment in Henan Province, a hotly contested frontline territory that endured massive environmental destruction and human disruption during the conflict between China and Japan during World War II. In a desperate attempt to block Japan's military advance, Chinese Nationalist armies under Chiang Kai-shek broke the Yellow River's dikes in Henan in June 1938, resulting in devastating floods that persisted until after the war's end. Greater catastrophe struck Henan in 1942-3, when famine took some two million lives and displaced millions more. Focusing on these war-induced disasters and their aftermath, this book conceptualizes…
“Old Shanghai” is in my blood: though raised in Hong Kong, I was surrounded by all things Shanghai through my parents and their friends, who had grown up during Shanghai’s 1930s heyday. The classical culture … the modern glamour … the breathtaking scandals! Since childhood I’ve searched for connections to my heritage; this fascination led me, years later, to write Remembering Shanghai with my mother, by then in her eighties. Having immersed myself in Shanghai history and culture most of my life, I am passionate about intimate, authentic stories that are told against a rich historical backdrop—the kind that make reviewers say “you can’t make this up!”
Decadent Old Shanghai was never going to survive a Communist takeover. It wasn’t easy to leave—in her family, my mother was told she was the lucky one, and so was the mother of author Helen Zia. An accomplished journalist, Zia masterfully captures what it was like for four young people—including her mother—to make the wrenching decision to leave their homes for places unknown, the chaos and distress of boarding that fabled “last boat” out of Shanghai, and what came after. The core of the story unfolds through the authentic accounts of the main characters Benny, Annuo, Bing, and Ho. Additionally, Zia uses detailed research and extensive interviews with hundreds of émigrés from all strata of Shanghai society, bringing to life this last of a generation to embark on a largely forgotten mass exodus.
The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution—a heartrending precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today.
“A true page-turner . . . [Helen] Zia has proven once again that history is something that happens to real people.”—New York Times bestselling author Lisa See
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY
Shanghai has historically been China’s jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city.…
My family and I were among those prioritized for admission to the United States during the Cold War—a migration I discussed in my first book, Havana, USA. Not all who seek refuge are as fortunate, however. Less than one percent of refugees worldwide are ever resettled in the top resettlement nations like the United States. My scholarship examines how US refugee policy has evolved in response to humanitarian, domestic, and foreign policy concerns and agendas.
Laura Madokoro offers a fascinating discussion of Chinese refugees during the Cold War as they sought protection in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These historically white settler societies had long restricted or barred Chinese migration for racist reasons, so the accommodation of Chinese refugees fleeing war and persecution was never guaranteed. Indeed, even their refugee status was questioned.
The book examines the governmental, humanitarian, and faith-based actors who shaped national responses to this migration and, ultimately, determined the fates of millions of displaced people.
The 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution is a subject of inexhaustible historical interest, but the plight of millions of Chinese who fled China during this tumultuous period has been largely forgotten. Elusive Refuge recovers the history of China's twentieth-century refugees. Focusing on humanitarian efforts to find new homes for Chinese displaced by civil strife, Laura Madokoro points out a constellation of factors-entrenched bigotry in countries originally settled by white Europeans, the spread of human rights ideals, and the geopolitical pressures of the Cold War-which coalesced to shape domestic and international refugee policies that still hold sway today.
I have dedicated my personal and professional life to expanding opportunities for girls and women and cultivating leadership skills. All of my books portray girls as main characters who exhibit bravery in many ways. They have joined the French Resistance in World War Two, chased enemy soldiers during the Civil War, delivered messages in the middle of a Revolutionary War battle, and fought for women’s rights in classrooms, workplaces, science labs, and at home. They’ve also been brave by building self-reliance and confidence in times of trouble and trusting their own abilities to make decisions and take action. I've recommended five books that exemplify these characteristics and are examples of outstanding writing.
Under the Broken Sky is a powerful story of twelve-year-old Natsu in Manchuria near the Soviet border in 1945. Natsu sets out on a desperate quest to rescue her younger sister. She refuses to quit under dangerous conditions and exemplifies tenaciousness and clever thinking. A heartwarming novel written skillfully in verse.
A beautifully told middle-grade novel-in-verse about a Japanese orphan's experience in occupied rural Manchuria during World War II.
Twelve-year-old Natsu and her family live a quiet farm life in Manchuria, near the border of the Soviet Union. But the life they've known begins to unravel when her father is recruited to the Japanese army, and Natsu and her little sister, Asa, are left orphaned and destitute. In a desperate move to keep her sister alive, Natsu sells Asa to a Russian family following the 1945 Soviet occupation. The journey to redemption for Natsu's broken family is rife with struggles, but…
A native of Nanjing (Nanking), China, Shouhua Qi has published extensively in both the United States and China on academic as well as transcultural issues. He is the author of more than twenty books, including fiction, nonfiction, literary translation, and scholarly monographs. Qi’s first novel, Purple Mountain, is about the Rape of Nanking, a horrendous tragic event that happened in his hometown in the winter of 1937-08. A screenplay Qi co-wrote based on the novel has been optioned for production.
This was a major battle that happened in 1937, right before the Rape of Nanking. After the fall of Shanghai, the Japanese army would march toward, Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of China then. Although it was front page news throughout much of the world then, few people other than historians know it today. It is no hyperbole to call the battle Stalingrad on the Yangtze. The book reads like an engrossing historical novel.
This deeply researched book describes one of the great forgotten battles of the 20th century. At its height it involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers, while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators and, often, victims. It turned what had been a Japanese adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.
I have been fascinated by history since I spent a year in Britain as a ten-year-old. I became hooked on novels set in ancient Greece and Rome and found it incredibly exotic to walk through old buildings and imagine the lives of the people who had walked through those same doors. In college, I began studying history in earnest and grew intrigued by China, especially Chinese cities during periods of upheaval and transformation. My first passion was Shanghai history, and I spent time there in the mid-1980s before the soaring Pudong skyscrapers that are now among its most iconic structures were built.I have since shifted my attention to Hong Kong, a city I had enjoyed visiting for decades but had not written about until after I completed my last book on Shanghai. My fascination with cities that are in China but enmeshed in global processes and are sites of protest has been a constant.
Shanghai, which was once called the “Hollywood of Asia,” has always been a cinematic city par excellence, so a good way to describe the charms of this book is via movie terms. In one sense, it zooms in tightly on a specific day in the history of the city and what was happening in a single setting. It mixes close-ups of a horse race and some people who came to watch it, though, with wide-angle shots and flashbacks. The author, a skilled historian with deep knowledge of Chinese history and a stylish writer, moves effortlessly between Shanghai in the early 1940s as the Japanese military’s World War II era grip on the city and much of China was tightening and earlier points in its past. He also moves fluidly between the racecourse—a potent symbol, as during the height of the British imperial period, Britons would often build these to mark…
12 November 1941: war and revolution are in the air. At the Shanghai Race Club, the elite prepare their best horses and most nimble jockeys for the annual Champions Day races. Across the city and amid tight security, others celebrated the birth of Sun Yat-Sen in a new centre which challenged European imperialism. Thousands more Shanghai residents attended the funeral of China's wealthiest woman. But the biggest crowd gathered at the track; no one knew it, but Champions Day heralded the end of European Shanghai. Through this snapshot of the day's events, the rich and complex history that led to…
