Shanghai

In the 1920s and '30s, Shanghai was known as "The Whore of the Orient," home to gangsters and warlords, nightclubs that never closed, and hotels that supplied heroin with room service. The city became the epitome of glamour, immortalized in books and films. With its bustling, polyglot population of British, Chinese, Americans, French, Germans, Japanese, and White Russians, and with its extremes of poverty and wealth, it appeared to straddle both East and West. By the time the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949 had destroyed the illusion, Shanghai had passed into legend. Here, through firsthand accounts, skillful research, and imaginative reconstruction, Harriet Sergeant brings the city's heyday vividly to life in a captivating account of its rise and fall. Harriet Sergeant is the author of Between the Lines and The Old Sow in the Back Room, which Booklist hailed as an "elegant, emotional, and fascinating portrayal."