At the height of World War II, two rival Jewish families in China—the Sassoons and the Kadoories—joined together to rescue and protect 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. But that was only one chapter in a remarkable 175-year-long story of survival, ambition, and political intrigue that connects the families, both originally from Baghdad, who dominated Chinese business and politics and whose lavish buildings define Shanghai and Hong Kong to this day.
Author Jonathan Kaufman, director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism, opens the rarified world these dynasties encountered and examines how their members helped transform China during pivotal years of growth and responded to revolutions that changed the future and how they reluctantly had to leave it all behind with the advent of communism.
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