Dimensions
142 x 223 x 37mm
Shanghai in the wake of the First World War was one of the world's most dynamic, brutal and exciting cities, rivalled only by New York and Berlin. Its waterfront crammed with ocean freighters, gunboats, junks and myriad coastal craft, it was the focus for trade between China and the world creating, for Chinese and foreigner alike, immense if precarious opportunities. Shanghai's great panorama of nightclubs, opium dens, brothels, racetracks and casinos was intertwined with this industrial powerhouse to create a uniquely seductive but also terrifying metropolis.
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.
