the soong dynasty by sterling seagrave summary

It chronicles the familys roots from the middle of the 19th century and their rise to power thereafter. He also tells the triumphant story of how they joined to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. The Soong Dynasty Summary The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave The story of the Soong family whose power and wealth have dominated China and American policy towards Asia in the 20th century. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable story of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the countrys deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. These two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars surviving Japanese occupation courting Chiang Kai-shek and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. By the 1930s, the Sassoons had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by only one other dynasty-the Kadoories. item 1 The Soong Dynasty - 9780060153083, hardcover, Sterling Seagrave The Soong Dynasty - 9780060153083, hardcover, Sterling Seagrave 3. A few miles away, Mao and the nascent communist party have been plotting revolution before being forced to flee the city. Built by Victor Sassoon-billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty-the hotel hosts a whos who of global celebrities: Noel Coward has written a draft of Private Lives in his suite, Charlie Chaplin entertained his wife-to-be, and the American socialite Wallis Simpson reportedly posed for dirty photographs.

The Cathay Hotel, located on the citys famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936.

The soong dynasty by sterling seagrave summary