Great cities deserve the attentions of writers who combine the historian's pursuit of accuracy with the willingness to be swayed by impressions, prejudices, anecdotes and flawed opinions. Shanghai, that most cosmopolitan of Chinese cities, could do no better than acclaimed journalist Stella Dong as its biographer.
Licentious, proudly rapacious, there was really nothing in its heyday to rival Shanghai, a half-Oriental, half-Occidental hybrid built on mudflats and swamp. Founded on the proceeds from opium, "the addictive drug that Britain was so bent upon selling to the Chinese that it waged a war against them for the privilege," the city that would become known as the "Whore of Asia" was tainted from the very beginning. The Chinese eventually learned to tolerate foreigners and their nefarious substances, however, because they also injected a more desirable stimulant into the country: money.
By turns analytical and descriptive, "Shanghai" covers the years from 1842 to 1949, when a new command economy run by zealots, cadres and the Communist military abruptly replaced the entrepreneurs, courtesans, gangsters and habitues of the shiliyangchang (foreign settlements) who had formerly defined the city. Dong details the founding of Shanghai and its expansion, while describing the lives of its business community, coolies, criminal syndicates and revolutionaries. Notwithstanding Shanghai's reputation as a city of shame, both the natives and foreign devils who made or lost their fortunes there came to have a deep affection for the city. Dong's book is an attempt to explain why this should have been the case.