A pair of displaced dynasties shaped two extraordinary cities
The Last Kings of Shanghai. By Jonathan Kaufman.Viking; 384 pages; $28. Little, Brown; £20.
Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai. By James Carter.W.W. Norton; 352 pages; $28.95 and £22.99.
THE STORIES of Shanghai and Hong Kong, the most remarkable cities in East Asia, begin with the pogroms under Dawud Pasha, the last Mamluk ruler of Iraq. Until his ascendancy, the Sassoons were leaders of a Jewish community in Baghdad that dated back to the Babylonian captivity; for centuries the head of the family acted as the pashas’ chief treasurer. Yet one dark night in 1829 here was David Sassoon, the city’s richest man, fleeing for his life towards the river with a money belt around his waist and pearls sewn into his cloak.
In 1832 the 40-year-old set up anew in cosmopolitan Bombay, no hardscrabble refugee but an heir determined to win back his birthright. The Sassoons never liked being called the Rothschilds of Asia: in their view, the Rothschilds were arrivistes.
David’s timing was lucky. The British empire, under which he sought protection, was at its height. He bought docks and warehouses. He imported new gins to make his raw cotton fit for the powered looms in British factories.
Above all, he ran drugs. The East India Company’s...