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Summary: Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City, 1842-1949
Review: A good read. Exciting, with colorful atmosphere and anecdotes.The city of Shanghai, as described in this book, was an extraordinary mixture of extremes of conspicuous consumption and poverty, of etiquette and immorality, and of leisure and harsh working conditions. The book can be appreciated on different levels: as an adventure story, as a description of social conditions, or as a narrative of an amazing history. Although this is not a history monograph, it would be a good accompaniment to one as it gives the reader the feeling of witnessing events as they happen. And they happen! Many current international questions have to do with China: the developments described offer background on such matters as the status of Taiwan and trade ties with the mainland. A note of warning: the reader should be well-armed with dictionaries because of the frequency of foreign (to Americans) words and phrases, many undefined in the text. Two examples are: nankeen (a kind of yellow cotton cloth) and ronin (here, outlaws). Also, the constant use of a British term (such as godown) when an equivalent term familiar to both British and American readers (warehouse) is available makes one suspect that the author enjoys offering what H. W. Fowler refers to as "puzzles for the common man".
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Summary: As Muddy As the Whangpu
Review: Alas, despite the enticing title and initially engaging, gossipy style, this book bogs down in repetitive trivial details while failing to explore fasciniting topics to which it alludes (such as the international drug trade in the early 20th century and its links to Shanghai and to international arms trading after WWI). Little effort is made to identify individuals as they reappear in subsequent chapters or to present a coherent historical narrative. This is one of the very few books I have ever simply chosen to put down rather than finish.
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Summary: An offensive, inaccurate mass of hyperbolies
Review: Although her book was well researched, and the facts mostly accurate, Stella Dong takes the city and defaces it with far off statements and conclusions. Although I have no ties to Shanghai, the book jumped out as a complete farce on the history and the people -- comparing the city to an emperor's ugly daughter,with underlying implications of it being prostitute like is simply a ploy to sell books through a mystical perception of the east. Stella Dong is playing on the stereotypes of the Far East to sell a B-rated book. Stella, you should be ashamed of yourself for defacing such a city. Granted, Shanghai is not the most pristine or morally restrained city in the world, but there are several other cities with histories much more 'decadent' and morally corrupt. Dont' read this book, or you will have a misperception of SHanghai, China, and the Far East.
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Summary: Meticulously-written, must read history
Review: Anyone who wants to know how the Shanghai of today came to be should read this latest, and by far the most thoughtful of recent crop of books about the city. Dong's wealth of factual material, details and vivid descriptions enable us to virtually see, hear and smell Shanghai as it was earelier in the century. Many novels have been set in Shanghai and filmakers from Josef von Sternberg to Steven Spielberg to Zhang Yimou have sought to capture the essence of this exciting but menacing city but I found the true stories in Dong's "Shanghai" far more fascinating than fiction or the movies. And knowing it was written by an historian freed me from having continually to ask myself, "Did that really happen or is the novelist or movie-maker invent it?" The colonial-style and Art Deco buildings and the general Europeanized Chinese city that that Stella Dong in great detail have lately been bulldozed away, to be replaced with ugly shopping malls and office-apartment complexes, the spirit of this amazing city is still alive. This is an ambitious social and political history that succeeds.
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Summary: Nostalgia for the Unremembered
Review: Being neither the right age nor nationality to have experienced the Pearl of the Orient at the height of its hedonistic lustre, this book delivers exactly what literary thrill-seekers like me are after: a good hour or two on the couch in quite another world, minus any brain-taxing flourishes of the scholarly. It reads like a gorgeously-filmed epic, complete with opium junkies, silk and whiskey, rickshaws (wonderfully quaint!), White Russians, massive wealth and dire indigence, cabarets and cheongsams and courtesans, guns and Occupation and Revolution, traids, Art Deco buildings, armies of servants, the Chinese literati and Jewish glitterati, fallen Manchu aristocrats, dinner-party orgies ... as well as the pre-requsite colonials in all their multi-faceted brilliance: corrupt, idealistic, capitalist, romantic. And over this teeming ferment, soon to prove itself sadly ephemeral, presided the grandiose skyline of the Bund, the most enduring image of Shanghai in popular memory, and here in Ms. Dong's 300-page cinematic capsule. For all armchair adventurers who've been disappointed by modern Shanghai's impersonation of Manhattan by day and Las Vegas by night, this is the perfect trip, in every sense of the word.
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Summary: Myth as history
Review: Contrary to other reader's reviews, I found Shanghai to a disappointing book. The writing style is very florid, indeed verging on overblown. On page one Shanghai is described as "the most pleasure-mad, rapacious, corrupt, strife-ridden, licentious, squalid and decadent city in the world." Each fresh page relentlessly strives to better this excitable list of adjectives. Although Stella Dong works hard to convey the atmosphere of old Shanghai, what her book does not do is provide a clear history of the city. Dates are very confused and the narrative thread lost in favour of colourful stories. This is not a book to read if you are looking for a coherent explanation of the Taiping rebellion the Opium wars or the rise of communism around Shanghai. Several reviewers have commented on the book's exhaustive research. That may be correct but I note that Dong cites only secondary sources in English. Overall, readers wanting a more nuanced appreciation of Shanghai would do well to look elsewhere. Those who want a racy read might be happier but it is difficult to escape the feeling that this book only adds to the myths about Shanghai rather than improving our understanding.
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Summary: A Fine Introduction to a Legendary City
Review: Given the dramatic, mesmerizing, splendid, and sordid history of Shanghai, it is not surprising that there has been a steady output of fictional and non-fictional material on this great city. It seems almost impossible to write a boring book about Shanghai, given its incredibly colorful past. Instead, writers in the West usually err on the side of excessive sentimentality and bubbly imagination. This is particularly true of authors influenced by the "Shanghailander" point of view. A more objective account requires detailed investigations into real life in Shanghai as seen from multiple perspectives. This is a tall order, and Stella Dong has taken a stab at it. As an introductory work, the book tries to capture the essence of Shanghai's vast panorama, surveying key developments in the city's history and profiling some of its most illustrious personalities. The result is a brisk, generally pleasant read. The material seems well-researched, and the author seems to hit all the crucial points. On the other hand, there is a lingering sense of dissatisfaction regarding the superficiality of the treatment. Important plot lines and personages are no sooner introduced than dropped almost immediately. The reader understands that there is an over-abundance of material to cover in limited space, but he nevertheless feels that some very important threads can be extended at little cost. The bottom line is that "Shanghai" is a fine introduction to the city. Those who want to probe deeper, however, should turn to works as "Shanghai Modern" by Leo Lee and "Policing Shanghai" by Frederic Wakeman.
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Summary: Truly descriptive and entertaining account of Shanghai
Review: Great reading. Made me feel like I was journeying into the past. Author does a fantastic job in mesmerizing the reader with colorful images of Shanghai in a bygone era.
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Summary: anti-west agenda spoils it
Review: i enjoyed the book and learned a lot but would have found it more readable if it were not laced with a racist anti-western agenda. i wonder whether a chinese person who easily refers to europeans as "foreign devils" or "evil, pale skinned, hairy giants with large nostrils" would consider it racist if chinese physical features were degraded in similar fashion. by the time they were in china building a modern metropolis in shanghai these "barbarians" had already given us michaelangelo, gallieo, newton, mozart, shakespeare, and innovations in industrial and business methods that would one day revolutionize china. there are things i do not agree with of course. for example, the idea that that china under the qing was utopian and all her ills were the work of the evil europeans is cleary not accurate. also the notion that the evils of opium were foisted upon the chinese by the europeans is inconsistent with the historical record. the author has a harder time pinning concubinage and prostitution on the west but still accuses the europeans of not doing enough to stop these practices. she does acknowledge the positive role played by the evil, barbaric, hairy european missionaries in combatting prostitution, opium, and footbinding but these positive elements do not seem to moderate her dislike of europeans. the anti-western vendetta is not appropriate in the chinese context. the author should consider that the horrors that the chinese have committed upon themselves far exceed those brought to her shores by foreign devils. she should also consider the benefits that the chinese have enjoyed because the foreign devils dragged them (kicking and screaming perhaps) into the modern world of mercantilism and the industrial revolution. it was thru their connections with western traders that the chinese entrepreneurs, both commercial and criminal, became fabulously wealthy and it is these families that have been the progenators of the chinese mercanitile class and eventually of the "old money" of shanghai and the fabulous wealth of hong kong. the author does note the wealth of the compradors but does not make the connection to the positive effects of western influence in china. "unfettered by data", as jon carroll would say, she pushes on with the single minded purpose of exposing the evils of the west. on the plus side, the way she intertwines biographical sketches of the major players to tell her story is very effective and makes fascinating reading. my only wish is that she could have separated that genius from her anti-west agenda and simply reported history for history's sake.
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Summary: An absorbing read
Review: I found Dong's "Shanghai" a thoroughly engaging read. My grandmother grew up in Shanghai and used to tell us the most amazing stories about the people she knew. There was, for instance, the matriarch of one of the "best" Sephardic Jewish families in town (they got their start importing opium into Shanghai from Bahgdad) who ran a whorehouse on the side. My grandmother says that the matriarch even worked in the establishment. One of her sons--went on to write a wonderful book about his youth in that storied Oriental City, "A Place in Time." Reading Dong's history of this many-sided city reminded me of stories I had heard from older family members and also brings to mind that axiom that "truth is stranger than fiction." My only qualm with this otherwise excellent book is Dong's obvious disttate of towards Chiang Kai-shek's government, his wife and the members of the Soong family. Well, they weren't perfect but at least they weren't Communists.
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