Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City

In its heyday, Shanghai was known by many names--the emperor's ugly daughter, Sodom and Gomorrah of the Far East and whore of Asia. In her first book, Dong, a journalist and second-generation Chinese-American, has filled her often-absorbing history of the city with vivid details that leave little doubt as to how Shanghai earned its reputation. She also offers tidbits on colorful local personalities, such as the Chinese warlord who never left home without his enormous lacquered teak coffin, the radical American feminist who was indirectly responsible for the end of Mao Zedong's second marriage and the wealthy Chinese businessman whose two younger daughters married Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen. Although the city was inhabited by 250,000 Chinese when the British invaded in 1842, it wasn't long before the nationals were serving the foreigners, who were making Shanghai one of the world's wealthiest business centers. Banking and manufacturing were the respectable professions, but it was opium--controlled largely by foreigners but used largely by Chinese--that built modern Shanghai. The arrogance and excess of foreigners, who set up their own courts, lived lavishly and excluded the Chinese from governing bodies and private clubs, created the uneven balance of power and economics that helped pave the way for Communism. Dong skillfully packs her narrative with all of the city's ""sordid pleasures and exploitation,"" offering an account that is at once informative and entertaining. (Mar.)