Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City

Shanghai at the turn of the twentieth century was the place to be. Opium was all the rage, parties were wild, and decadence was a way of life. Journalist Stella Dong looks back on a city that in its heyday was a thrilling combination of Las Vegas, the Wild West, Paris in the '20s, and Chicago during Prohibition. She captures the excitement of its most notorious years -- the decades before Mao's revolution -- when the city was populated with bankers, gangsters, revolutionaries, drug traffickers, gamblers, world royalty, industrial magnates, celebrities, and heiresses. Shanghai was the one place on the globe where no restrictions were placed on immigration. As a result, political refugees and outlaws sought its sanctuary. At that time, this truly international city was free of a central government's scrutiny and quickly became a breeding ground for revolutionary activity. This lively biography describes the thrill and excitement of those years.