Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise Reissued

One of the great, great reads on old Shanghai is Lynn Pan’s Gangsters in Paradise about the notorious villains of the interwar years. It was first published in 1984 to great acclaim and has remained in print but not always easy to find. So well done in the extreme to Marshall Cavendish for issuing a new edition complete with a great and atmospheric cover. It’s not out in Europe and the US till the autumn but it’s around in Asia now. See below the blurb on the book and here’s a link to an article Time Out Beijing did with Lynn where she talks about Du Yuesheng, Huang Jinrong and Dai Li, aka Big Eared Du, Pockmarked Huang and China’s very own Himmler!!

The history of old Shanghai is brought vividly to life in this classic work by Lynn Pan. The tumultuous events of the first half of the 20th century in China have been told in numerous books: the collapse of the Qing, the first Chinese republic, the war with Japan, the rise and ultimate triumph of the Chinese Communist Party. What is exceptional about Lynn Pan s account, however, is that she tells the story through a number of interlocking portraits Du Yuesheng, China s most notorious secret society chief; Wang Jingwei, the Chinese Pétain ; General Dai Li, the head of wartime Asia s most powerful secret police. Through their eyes, their thoughts, their actions, we gain an unsurpassed look into the unfolding of history. Among the arenas in which these people operated, it was the great city of Shanghai where the gathering maelstrom of war and revolution was marked by the greatest paradox. And it is Shanghai that forms the dramatic backdrop to the extraordinary events that take place in this book. With historical insight and an intuition for Chinese character and behaviour, Lynn Pan illuminates both the unique city and its unique personalities. This compelling re-creation of a fascinating era is both an unusual slice of history and a narrative bordering on fiction. No reader interested in China will be indifferent to this book, for few writers have told its story with so sure a grasp of the Chinese psyche.