Resources

Nonfiction:

Colonial Spectacles: The Netherlands And the Dutch East Indies at the World Exhibitions, 1880-1931, by Marieke Bloembergen and Beverly Jackson. No Description available

Batavia in 19th Century Photographs, by Scott Merrillees. Amazon Description: "Batavia in Nineteenth Century Photographs provides the most comprehensive photographic record ever published of Jakarta from the late 1850s when the earliest known photographs of the city were taken through to the closing years of the 19th century."

The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of Three Great Cities of Spice, by Michael Krondl. Amazon Description: "The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trotting tale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, fickle fashion, and mouthwatering cuisine–in short, the very stuff of which our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, and anecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writer and food historian, tells the story of three legendary cities–Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam–and how their single-minded pursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet and set in motion the first great wave of globalization. Sharing meals and stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, and Venetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore the world of long ago and sample its many flavors. Along the way, he reveals that the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans led to great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesale slaughter."

All About Shanghai and Environs: The 1934-1935 Standard Guidebook. Amazon Description: "A classic guidebook from Shanghai's roaring 1930s. Written with firsthand authority and an enthusiasm that is truly infectious, the authors captured and bottled the madness, excitement, depravity and fast bucks of the greatest boomtown the world had ever seen. Written as a guide for newcomers and visitors, this book today is a fascinating portrait of the old Shanghai in its heyday, enjoying every minute of the ride."

Old Shanghai Clubs and Associations: A Directory of the Rich Life of Foreigners in Shanghai from the 1840s-1950s, by Nenad Djordjevic. Amazon Description: "This directory is a landmark work of scholarship, uncovering an extraordinary amount of detail on the diverse foreign community of old Shanghai, from the 1840s when it was established as a foreign treaty port, through to and beyond the Communist victory in 1949. Information is included on more than 2,000 foreign and Chinese clubs, societies and associations, along with many thousands of named individuals, providing a unique resource for the study of old Shanghai, and an invaluable insight into a vitally important and much-neglected part of China's modern history."

Tales of Old Shanghai, by Graham Earnshaw. Amazon Description: "The old Shanghai was a rich and cosmopolitan mixture of East and West. This book provides a glimpse into that world with a mish-mash of photos, newspaper clippings, cartoons and writings to bring back to life those far-off days. There has never been a place like Shanghai -- the layers and depth of richness that the city possesses is extraordinary. This book attempts to give a feel for the world of Old Shanghai. It is not a history book in the usual sense of the term. There is no need to start at page one and read through to the end. It is a jumble of items which evoke the different eras of Old Shanghai."

Shanghai: Art of the City, by Michael Knight and Dany Chan. Amazon Description: "Shanghai's tumultuous history has resulted in the progressive and stylish city of today. For more than a century and a half artists have been both documenting the city's changes and leading its way into the future. Timed to coincide with the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 (and a city-wide Shanghai Celebration in San Francisco, its sister city), Shanghai catalogs the first exhibition to explore one of China's most cosmopolitan cities. A case study in cultural globalization, the book traces, through its art, factors behind the city's distinctive character. Lavishly illustrated, this oversized book features 128 oil paintings, Shanghai deco furniture and rugs, revolutionary posters, works of fashion, movie clips and contemporary installations. These artworks, drawn mainly from the collections of the Shanghai Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Shanghai City History Museum and the Lu Xun Memorial Hall, include the most significant visual documents of the city's rich and ever-changing culture."

The Bund Shanghai: China Faces West, by Peter Hibbard. Amazon Description: "This book tells the story of the making of the Bund: from its beginnings as a muddy foreshore and its conversion into a fine esplanade in the latter half of the 19th century, when its infamous "Public Gardens" barred entry to most Chinese, to its cosmopolitan reinvention with the dawning of the millennium. The main focus is on the vibrant years of the 1920s and 1930s when most of the Bund's monumental edifices were built as a lasting testament to the city's commercial success and symbolized the city's passage to sophistication and modernity. This book goes far beyond the facades of the buildings, examining the fascinating historical and social context of this area and profiling the many key figures and organizations that made the Bund in years gone by and that are remodeling it today."

Shanghai Girl Gets All Dressed Up, by Beverley Jackson. Amazon Description: "It was within the sensual, cinematic setting of 1930s Shanghai that traditional Chinese fashion changed forever. Call them cheongsam, qi pao, or Suzy Wong dresses—the high-collared, body-clinging, slit-to-the-thigh gowns evolved in a world of dramatic change, where Chinese citizens mingled with foreigners from such cosmopolitan cities as Tokyo, London, New York, and Moscow. Asian art-historian Beverley Jackson explores the city that fostered such radical cultural and social change and the daring and fashionable women—including actresses, courtesans, and showgirls—who wore these fabulous and revealing dresses. Twenty luminous photos of cheongsams and Chinese costumes from the author's collection, combined with spectacular archival photographs and art, chronicle the social life and history of a groundbreaking city and the beautiful fashions that were born within its walls. Part history and part fashionable frolic, SHANGHAI GIRL steps back in time and paints a vivid picture of a lost generation of intrigue, style, and beauty. Includes more than 100 new and vintage photographs of the city, the clothes, the Chinese cinema stars who led the trends, and the Hollywood movie queens who inspired them.Addresses the profound influence of Chinese costumes on Western fashion trends via film in the 1930s."

Shanghai Style: Art and Design Between the Wars, by Lynn Pan. Amazon Description: "From the 1920s to the 1940s, no place was more modern than Shanghai: a veritable playground amid a sea of Asian and European influences; an urban population clamoring for all that was new and Western, but whose aesthetic sensibilities remained profoundly Chinese. In this rich social and cultural history of Shanghai's art and culture, Lynn Pan guides the reader through the myriad world inhabited by commercial and underground artists and designers, performers, architects, decorators, patrons, as well as politicians, generals, and crime bosses. What emerges is a singular portrait of a city and its art-its life blood, in an era that continues to capture the imagination of art lovers and cultural critics today."

Changing Clothes in China: Fashion, History, Nation, by Antonia Finnane. Amazon Description: "Based largely on nineteenth and twentieth-century representations of Chinese dress as traditional and unchanging, historians have long regarded fashion as something peculiarly Western. But in this surprising, sumptuously illustrated book, Antonia Finnane proves that vibrant fashions were a vital part of Chinese life in the late imperial era, when well-to-do men and women showed a keen awareness of what was up-to-date. Though foreigners who traveled to China in the early decades of the twentieth century came away with the impression that Chinese dress was simple and monotone, the key features of modern fashion were beginning to emerge, especially in Shanghai. Men in blue gowns donned felt caps and leather shoes, girls began to wear fitted jackets and narrow pants, and homespun garments gave way to machine-woven cloth, often made in foreign lands. These innovations marked the start of a far-reaching vestimentary revolution that would transform the clothing culture in urban and much of rural China over the next half century."

Shanghai's Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954, by Andrew Field. Amazon Description: "Drawing upon a unique and untapped reservoir of sources, this study traces the origin, pinnacle, and ultimate demise of a commercial dance industry in Shanghai between the end of the First World War and the early years of the People's Republic of China. Delving deep into the world of cabarets, nightclubs, and elite ballrooms that arose in the 1920s, the book assesses how and why Chinese society incorporated and transformed this westernized world of leisure and entertainment. Focusing on the jazz-age nightlife of the city in its 'golden age,' the work examines issues of colonialism and modernity, jazz and African-American culture, urban space, sociability and sexuality, and latter-day Chinese national identity formation in a tumultuous era of war and revolution."

Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s, by Nicholas R. Clifford. Amazon Description: "By 1920 an enclave of some 38,000 foreigners lived in Shanghai with their own government, lifestyle, and privileges. This was not to last, for the decade brought challenges to this comfortable imperialism. In 1924 a local war linked the evils of warlords and imperialism in Chinese minds. The May 30, 1925 shooting of 11 Chinese by British police, with subsequent nationalist protests, began to chip away at foreign control in Shanghai. Chiang Kai-Shek's massacres of Communists of Shanghai in 1927 again showed Chinese influence over the city. Clifford writes this narrative with a solid grasp of complex events, well supported by source notes. With its evenhanded view, this book becomes a standard reference for foreign Shanghai in the 1920s."

Captives of Empire: The Japanese Internment of Allied Civilians in China and Hong Kong, 1941-1945, by Greg Leck. Book Description by Author: "Captives of Empire fills a major gap in the annals of World War II and that of prisoners of war. Here for the first time is a definitive history of the internment of Allied civilians in China. Private papers, diaries, letters, and official reports, many long hidden, were utilized to bring a complete picture of internment to light. "

Bridge House Survivor, by Henry F. Pringle. Amazon Description: In this memoir, Henry F. Pringle takes us inside the engine room of Imperial Japanese terror - Bridge House Prison - and the prison camps at Haiphong Road in Shanghai and Fengtai near Beijing, bringing to life the tragedy and courage he saw in humanity s darkest hour. He also includes a description of his hazardous return trip to Shanghai from Beijing during the chaotic months that followed the end of hostilities in August 1945.

Watching the Sun Rise: Australian Reporting of Japan, 1931 to the Fall of Singapore, by Jacqui Murray. Amazon Description: "Historians have long claimed that a tradition of fear of Japan dominated Australian thinking about foreign affairs and defense after Japan's defeat of Russia in 1905 and that this fear remained widespread throughout the Australian population until the Pacific War. This study of Australian reporting on Japan challenges that claim by exposing a culture of state censorship, intimidation of the media, and neglect of official public discussion of foreign affairs in the years 1931-1941 which resulted in newspapers, radio, and news reels projecting a collective national consciousness of Japan as a nation of little import—despite very real fears in senior political ranks about Japanese designs on Australia. Jacqui Murray's argument for the Australian media's underestimation of Japan's threat is sustained by close examination of media practices, publications, and broadcasts which clearly show misleading representations of Japan before the Pacific War. Watching the Sun Rise details not only government peace-time media censorship but also war-time propaganda flows from Australian, British, and Japanese sources into the Australian media and examples of cooperation and/or espionage among media personnel."

Shanghai Splendor, by Wen-hsin Yeh. Amazon Description: "Rich with details of everyday life, this multifaceted social and cultural history of China's leading metropolis in the twentieth century offers a kaleidoscopic view of Shanghai as the major site of Chinese modernization. Engaging the entire span of Shanghai's modern history from the Opium War to the eve of the Communist takeover in 1949, Wen-hsin Yeh traces the evolution of a dazzling urban culture that became alternately isolated from and intertwined with China's tumultuous history. Looking in particular at Shanghai's leading banks, publishing enterprises, and department stores, she sketches the rise of a new maritime and capitalist economic culture among the city's middle class. Making extensive use of urban tales and visual representations, the book captures urbanite voices as it uncovers the sociocultural dynamics that shaped the people and their politics."

Wartime Shanghai, by Wen-hsin Yeh. Amazon Description: "Wartime Shanghai is a lively account of the political and social situation between 1937 and 1946. It explores the deep political rivalries between Nationalist groups, the intrigue of international espionage and how Shanghai society, from European administrators to Chinese film makers, collaborated with, or resisted, the Japanese occupation. Drawing on archival and published sources in English, French, Chinese and Japanese, the authors show the diversity of groups and communities that made up wartime Shanghai. This book is an engaging collection of essays written on an exciting, but often neglected episode of Chinese history."

In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation, edited by Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh. Amazon Description: "Rejecting conventional demands, this book examines how ordinary men and women, Chinese as well as foreign, endured the Japanese military assault and occupation of Shanghai during the Chinese War of Resistance (1937-1945). Instead of presenting their stories in terms of heroic resistance versus shameful collaboration with the enemy, the volume reveals how the city's dwellers mobilized a variety of social networks to circumvent enemy strictures. They employed strategies that kept alive a culture and an economy that were vital to the survival of the brutalized population."

Policing Shanghai: 1927-1937, by Frederic Wakeman, Jr. Amazon Description: "Prewar Shanghai: casinos, brothels, Green Gang racketeers, narcotics syndicates, gun-runners, underground Communist assassins, Comitern secret agents. Frederic Wakeman's masterful study of the most colorful and corrupt city in the world at the time provides a panoramic view of the confrontation and collaboration between the Nationalist secret police and the Shanghai underworld. Parts of this book read like a spy novel, with secret police, torture, assassination; and power struggles among the French, International Settlement, and Japanese consular police within Shanghai. Wakeman's exhaustively researched study is a major contribution to the study of the Nationalist regime and to modern Chinese urban history."

The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937-1941, by Frederic Wakeman, Jr. Amazon Description: "Between August 1937 and December 1941, terrorist wars broke out between Nationalist secret agents and the assassins of the Japanese military authorities who occupied most of Shanghai, and a spate of assassinations, bombings, and machine gun raids took place under the very noses of authorities. The release of secret Chinese police files by the C.I.A. allow the inner workings of these terrorist groups, and their links to the Green Gang just before Pearl Harbor was bombed and World War II erupted, to be exposed for the first time."

Secret War in Shanghai: Treachery, Subversion and Collaboration in the Second World War, by Bernard Wasserstein. Amazon Description: "Bernard Wasserstein has uncovered startling evidence from the archives of the intelligence agencies of several countries that relates the remarkable and murky history of Shanghai''s political netherworld during the 1930s and 40s."

A Dutch Spy in Shanghai: Reports on the First Phase of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1939), edited by Ger Teitler and Kurt W. Radtke. Description: First hand accounts of the Battle of Shanghai and the Japanese occupation by a Dutch spy.

Assignment Shanghai: Photographs on the Eve of Revolution, edited by Carolyn Wakeman and Ken Light. Amazon Description: "Shipping out to China in December 1947 with three ten-year-old German cameras and a plum assignment from Life magazine, Jack Birns was fulfilling a boyhood dream. The reality was something else: refugees and prostitutes, soldiers and beggars, street executions and urban protests photographed in difficult and often dangerous circumstances amidst the poverty, corruption, and chaos of an expanding civil war. By then the ruling Nationalist Party had been battling the Communist threat for more than two decades, and Birns focused his camera on the human drama unfolding as war pressed ever closer to the country's financial, cultural, and commercial capital. His effort to show China's misery up close ran afoul of Time-Life publisher Henry R. Luce's fervent anti-communism, and for half a century many of these historic photographs lay unpublished in Time-Life's archives. Printed here for the first time, they offer a graphic vision of a great city, Shanghai, poised on the precipice of political revolution."

Honorable Survivor: Mao's China, McCarthy's America, and the Persecution of John S. Service, by Lynne Joiner. Official Website Description: "John Service was the audacious diplomat blamed for "losing China." An early target of McCarthy’s smears, he spent the rest of his life fighting for his reputation."

Memoirs:

The Dutch Indies: A Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Indian Ocean, by Georgiana Sewell. Description: Pre-1923 account of voyaging to the Dutch East Indies.

Gudao, Lone Islet: The War Years in Shanghai - A Childhood Memoir, by Margaret Blair. Amazon Description: "Shanghai, China - and lifestyles of Chinese and foreigners - in 1930s to 1946. Internment by Japanese, Adventures, World War II events in China and Pacific, Chinese Holocaust."

Sin City, by Ralph Shaw. Description: The racy memoirs of a British journalist who moved to Shanghai in 1937 and wrote for the North China Daily News. He survived WWII in a Japanese interment camps and later wrote about the Communist Revolution.

Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai, by Robert Bickers. Amazon Description: "This is a biography of a nobody that offers a window into an otherwise closed world. It is a life which manages to touch us all!' - "Empire Made Me". Shanghai in the wake of the First World War was one of the world's most dynamic, brutal and exciting cities - an incredible panorama of nightclubs, opium-dens, gambling and murder. Threatened from within by communist workers and from without by Chinese warlords and Japanese troops, and governed by an ever more desperate British-dominated administration, Shanghai was both mesmerising and terrible. Into this maelstrom stepped a tough and resourceful ex-veteran Englishman to join the police. It is his story, told in part through his rediscovered photo-albums and letters, that Robert Bickers has uncovered in this remarkable, moving book."

Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China, by Ursula Bacon. Amazon Description: "By the late 1930s, Europe sat on the brink of a world war. As the holocaust approached, many Jewish families in Germany fled to one of the only open port available to them: Shanghai. Once called 'the armpit of the world,' Shanghai ultimately served as the last resort for tens of thousands of Jews desperate to escape Hitler's 'Final Solution.' Against this backdrop, 11-year-old Ursula Bacon and her family made the difficult 8,000-mile voyage to Shanghai, with its promise of safety. But instead of a storybook China, they found overcrowded streets teeming with peddlers, beggars, opium dens, and prostitutes. Amid these abysmal conditions, Ursula learned of her own resourcefulness and found within herself the fierce determination to survive."

Shanghai Refugee: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto, by Ernest G. Heppner. Amazon Description: "The unlikely refuge of Shanghai, the only city in the world that did not require a visa, was buffeted by the struggle between European imperialism, Japanese aggression, and Chinese nationalism. Ernest G. Heppner's compelling testimony is a brilliant account of this little-known haven."

Survival in Shanghai: The Journals of Fred Marcus, 1939-1949, by Audrey Friedman Marcus and Rena Krasno. Description: Fred survived WWII as a German Jewish refugee in Shanghai. Fred's wife has translated his journals of the war years from German to English and presented them here in a first hand account of life in occupied Shanghai.

Our Childhood in the Former Colonial Dutch East Indies: Recollections before and during Our Wartime Internment by the Japanese, by Ralph Ockerse.

Novels: