The Second World War began in the Far East on 7 July 1937 with the apanese onslaught on China. The battle of Shanghai in the autumn ofthat year marked the bloody climax of the first phase of the conflict. Britain and the United States were not drawn in formally until December 1941,the Soviet Union only in the final days in 1945. Yet in reality all the major powers found themselves embroiled from the outset in one way or another in the struggle for mastery of the Asiatic mainland.

...

  ‘Bernard Wasserstein recounts this utterly enthralling chronicle with consummate skill, not to mention astonishingly comprehensive research. He brings to life with extraordinary clarity not only one of the most convoluted episodes of modern Chinese history, but also a cast of diverse, colourful characters and the Byzantine machinations of their lives in Shanghai,capturing with all the intensity of a blockbusting novelist the mood and intrigues of what was one of the great cities of the world.'

‘Wasserstein knows a bad hat when he sees one. His cool accounts of such colourful Shanghai criminals as one-Arm Sutton, Peg-Leg Kearney,"Princess" Sumaire and "Captain" Pick are as enjoyable as they are admirable for their research.'

Abbreviations

List of Maps

Who Was Who

Introduction

1 Solitary Island

2 Bad Hats

3 Phony War in the International Settlement

4 Waiting for the Barbarians

5 Dark World

6 Oriental Mission

7 Eagles Mew'd

8 Collaborators

9 Shanghailanders in Exile

10 Wars Within Wars

11 Endgames

12 Twilight of Old Shanghai

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index