Old Shanghai: Gangsters In Paradise
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner,Remainder mark
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the glittering, vice-ridden world of pre-war Shanghai — a city known as the Paris of the East and the Whore of Asia — crime, opium, and extraordinary ambition collided to forge one of the most lawless metropolises the modern world has ever known. Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise chronicles the rise of the criminal underworld that held the city in its iron grip during the early twentieth century, with particular focus on the notorious Green Gang and its larger-than-life overlord, Du Yuesheng, whose influence permeated every stratum of Shanghai society, from the opium dens of the French Concession to the corridors of Nationalist political power. Writing under the pen name Pan Ling, Lynn Pan brings to this vivid social history a journalist's eye for detail and a storyteller's gift for atmosphere, presenting a portrait of a city intoxicated by its own excess and contradiction. The narrative illuminates the uneasy coexistence of colonial privilege, Chinese nationalism, and criminal empire that made Shanghai utterly unique — and utterly dangerous. Pan's authoritative yet accessible prose transforms what could be dry historical record into something far more seductive, leaving the reader to wonder how a city so magnificently corrupt could simply vanish from the earth.
Author: Pan Ling
Format: Paperback
Published: 1993, Heinemann Asia
Genre: Asian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner,Remainder mark
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In the glittering, vice-ridden world of pre-war Shanghai — a city known as the Paris of the East and the Whore of Asia — crime, opium, and extraordinary ambition collided to forge one of the most lawless metropolises the modern world has ever known. Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise chronicles the rise of the criminal underworld that held the city in its iron grip during the early twentieth century, with particular focus on the notorious Green Gang and its larger-than-life overlord, Du Yuesheng, whose influence permeated every stratum of Shanghai society, from the opium dens of the French Concession to the corridors of Nationalist political power. Writing under the pen name Pan Ling, Lynn Pan brings to this vivid social history a journalist's eye for detail and a storyteller's gift for atmosphere, presenting a portrait of a city intoxicated by its own excess and contradiction. The narrative illuminates the uneasy coexistence of colonial privilege, Chinese nationalism, and criminal empire that made Shanghai utterly unique — and utterly dangerous. Pan's authoritative yet accessible prose transforms what could be dry historical record into something far more seductive, leaving the reader to wonder how a city so magnificently corrupt could simply vanish from the earth.