The Last Kings of Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735224439
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Kings of Shanghai by : Jonathan Kaufman

Download or read book The Last Kings of Shanghai written by Jonathan Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist The Sassoons and the Kadoories stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.

The Last Kings of Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735224420
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Kings of Shanghai by : Jonathan Kaufman

Download or read book The Last Kings of Shanghai written by Jonathan Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936. The Cathay Hotel, located on the city's famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. Built by Victor Sassoon--billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty--the hotel hosts a who's who of global celebrities: Noel Coward has written a draft of Private Lives in his suite and Charlie Chaplin has entertained his wife-to-be. And a few miles away, Mao and the nascent Communist Party have been plotting revolution. By the 1930s, the Sassoons had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by only one other dynasty--the Kadoories. These two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than 175 years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and losing nearly everything as the Communists swept into power. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival. The book lays bare the moral compromises of the Kadoories and the Sassoons--and their exceptional foresight, success, and generosity. At the height of World War II, they joined together to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. Though their stay in China started out as a business opportunity, the country became a home they were reluctant to leave, even on the eve of revolution. The lavish buildings they built and the booming businesses they nurtured continue to define Shanghai and Hong Kong to this day. As the United States confronts China's rise, and China grapples with the pressures of breakneck modernization and global power, the long-hidden odysseys of the Sassoons and the Kadoories hold a key to understanding the present moment.

The Last Kings of Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0735224412
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Last Kings of Shanghai by : Jonathan Kaufman

Download or read book The Last Kings of Shanghai written by Jonathan Kaufman and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Shanghai, 1936. The Cathay Hotel, located on the city's famous waterfront, is one of the most glamorous in the world. Built by Victor Sassoon--billionaire playboy and scion of the Sassoon dynasty--the hotel hosts a who's who of global celebrities: Noel Coward has written a draft of Private Lives in his suite, Charlie Chaplin entertained his wife-to-be, and the American socialite Wallis Simpson reportedly posed for dirty photographs. A few miles away, Mao and the nascent communist party have been plotting revolution before being forced to flee the city. By the 1930's, the Sassoons had been doing business in China for a century, rivaled in wealth and influence by only one other dynasty--the Kadoories. These two Jewish families, both originally from Baghdad, stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable story of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival. He also tells the triumphant story of how they joined to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. The book lays bare the moral compromises of the Kadoories and the Sassoons--and their exceptional foresight, success and generosity. China started out as a business opportunity but became a home that they were reluctant to leave. The lavish buildings they built and booming businesses they nurtured continue to define Shanghai and Hong Kong to this day. Their long-hidden odysseys are especially relevant today as the United States confronts China's rise, and China grapples with the pressures of breakneck modernization and global power.

Last Boat Out of Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0345522338
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (455 download)

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Book Synopsis Last Boat Out of Shanghai by : Helen Zia

Download or read book Last Boat Out of Shanghai written by Helen Zia and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution—a heartrending precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. “A true page-turner . . . [Helen] Zia has proven once again that history is something that happens to real people.”—New York Times bestselling author Lisa See NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY Shanghai has historically been China’s jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao’s proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, members of the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have revealed their stories to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves together the stories of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States. Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father’s dark wartime legacy, must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the U.S. in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America. The lives of these men and women are marvelously portrayed, revealing the dignity and triumph of personal survival. Herself the daughter of immigrants from China, Zia is uniquely equipped to explain how crises like the Shanghai transition affect children and their families, students and their futures, and, ultimately, the way we see ourselves and those around us. Last Boat Out of Shanghai brings a poignant personal angle to the experiences of refugees then and, by extension, today. “Zia’s portraits are compassionate and heartbreaking, and they are, ultimately, the universal story of many families who leave their homeland as refugees and find less-than-welcoming circumstances on the other side.”—Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club

A Hole in the Heart of the World

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin (Non-Classics)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (97 download)

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Book Synopsis A Hole in the Heart of the World by : Jonathan Kaufman

Download or read book A Hole in the Heart of the World written by Jonathan Kaufman and published by Penguin (Non-Classics). This book was released on 1998 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist ventures into postwar Eastern Europe and discovers a people rising from the ashes of Nazi genocide. Weaving together the stories of old and young, disenchanted and enthusiastic, this luminous cultural group portrait takes readers deep into the still-dark soul of Eastern Europe.

The King of Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : House of Anansi
ISBN 13 : 1770892478
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The King of Shanghai by : Ian Hamilton

Download or read book The King of Shanghai written by Ian Hamilton and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2015-01-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventh novel in the Ava Lee series finds Ava caught up in the election for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies. It’s been three months since Uncle’s passing, and Ava is finally ready to begin her new life as a partner with May Ling Wong and her sister-in-law Amanda in their Three Sisters venture capital firm. Ava travels to Shanghai to hear a pitch on a new investment possibility: the creation of a fashion line by Clark and Gillian Po. She also meets with the mysterious Xu, a young man Uncle had been mentoring and who is the head of the triad in Shanghai. Xu makes an audacious business proposal that she and May Ling are compelled to consider. Meanwhile, separately and privately, he confides to Ava that he intends to run for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies and attempts to recruit her as his adviser. Against her will, Ava becomes enmeshed in triad warfare and her future is threatened...

Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060934816
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Shanghai by : Stella Dong

Download or read book Shanghai written by Stella Dong and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2001-05-22 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transformed from a swampland wilderness into a dazzling, modern–day Babylon, the Shanghai that predated Mao‘s cultural revolution was a city like no other: redolent with opium and underworld crime, booming with foreign trade, blessed with untold wealth and marred by abject squalor. Journalist Stella Dong captures all the exoticism, extremes, and excitement of this legendary city as if it were a larger–than–life character in a fantastic novel.

City of Devils

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Author :
Publisher : Picador USA
ISBN 13 : 1250170583
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis City of Devils by : Paul French

Download or read book City of Devils written by Paul French and published by Picador USA. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the 1930s, Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, fortunes made--and lost. 'Lucky' Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison in the States, spotted a craze for gambling and rose to become the Slot King of Shanghai. 'Dapper' Joe Farren--a Jewish boy who fled Vienna's ghetto with a dream of dance halls--ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld's. In 1940 they bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and genocide. They thought they ruled Shanghai; but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction they left in their wake."--Jacket

Escape to Shanghai

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Author :
Publisher : James Ross
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Escape to Shanghai by : James Rodman Ross

Download or read book Escape to Shanghai written by James Rodman Ross and published by James Ross. This book was released on 1994 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Shanghai Refuge

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 9780803272811
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (728 download)

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Book Synopsis Shanghai Refuge by : Ernest G. Heppner

Download or read book Shanghai Refuge written by Ernest G. Heppner and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unlikely refuge of Shanghai, the only city in the world that did not require a visa, was buffeted by the struggle between European imperialism, Japanese aggression, and Chinese nationalism. Ernest G. Heppner's compelling testimony is a brilliant account of this little-known haven. Although Heppner was a member of a privileged middle-class Jewish family, he suffered from the constant anti-Semitic undercurrent in his surroundings. The devastation of "Crystal Night" in November 1938, however, introduced a new level of Nazi horror and ended his comfortable world overnight. Heppner and his mother used the family's resources to escape to Shanghai. Heppner was taken aback by experiences on the ocean liner that transported the refugees to Shanghai: he was embarrassed and confounded when Egyptian Jews offered worn clothing to the Jewish passengers, he resented the edicts against Jewish passengers disembarking in any ports on the way, and he was unprepared for the poverty and cultural dislocation of the great city of Shanghai. Nevertheless, Heppner was self-reliant, energetic, and clever, and his story of finding niches for his skills that enabled him to survive in a precarious fashion is a tribute to human endurance. In 1945, after the liberation of China, Heppner found a responsible position with the American forces there. He and his wife, whom he had met and married in the ghetto, arrived in the United States in 1947 with only eleven dollars but boundless hope and energy. Heppner's account of the Shanghai ghetto is as vivid to him now as it was then. His admiration for his new country and his later success in business do not, however, obscure for him the shameful failure of the Allies to furnish a refuge for Jews before, during, and after the war.

Shanghai 1937

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504026233
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Shanghai 1937 by : Peter Harmsen

Download or read book Shanghai 1937 written by Peter Harmsen and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller that inspired the documentary Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began on Public Television. At its height, the Battle of Shanghai involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators—and often victims. It turned what had been a Japanese imperialist adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world. In its sheer scale, the struggle for China’s largest city was a sinister forewarning of what was in store only a few years later in theaters around the world. It demonstrated how technology had given rise to new forms of warfare and had made old forms even more lethal. Amphibious landings, tank assaults, aerial dogfights, and—most important—urban combat all happened in Shanghai in 1937. It was a dress rehearsal for World War II—or, perhaps more correctly, it was the inaugural act in the war, the first major battle in the global conflict. Actors from a variety of nations were present in Shanghai during the three fateful autumn months when the battle raged. The rich cast included China’s ascetic Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Japanese adversary, General Matsui Iwane, who wanted Asia to rise from disunity, but ultimately pushed the continent toward its deadliest conflict ever. Claire Chennault, later of “Flying Tiger” fame, was among the figures emerging in the course of the campaign, as was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In an ironic twist, Alexander von Falkenhausen, a stern German veteran of the Great War, abandoned his role as a mere advisor to the Chinese army and led it into battle against the Japanese invaders. Shanghai 1937 fills a gaping chasm in our understanding of the War of Resistance and the Second World War.

Remembering Shanghai

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781954854055
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (54 download)

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Book Synopsis Remembering Shanghai by : Isabel Sun Chao

Download or read book Remembering Shanghai written by Isabel Sun Chao and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A volume that demands to be held." --Los Angeles Review of Books True stories of glamour, drama, and tragedy told through five generations of a Shanghai family, from the last days of imperial rule to the Cultural Revolution. A high position bestowed by China's empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and '40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever. When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home--and that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family's past--one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering palaces and underworld crime bosses. Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss, and redemption against an epic backdrop. WINNER OF 20 LITERARY AND DESIGN AWARDS, INCLUDING: Writer's Digest GRAND PRIZE Rubery Book Award BOOK OF THE YEAR IAN Independent Author Network OUTSTANDING MEMOIR IPPY Independent Publisher Book Awards BEST FIRST BOOK Reader Views GLOBAL AWARD

Broken Alliance

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684800969
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Broken Alliance by : Jonathan Kaufman

Download or read book Broken Alliance written by Jonathan Kaufman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1995 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Index. Bibliographical notes: p. 285-300.

China’s Good War

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674984269
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis China’s Good War by : Rana Mitter

Download or read book China’s Good War written by Rana Mitter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese leaders once tried to suppress memories of their nation’s brutal experience during World War II. Now they celebrate the “victory”—a key foundation of China’s rising nationalism. For most of its history, the People’s Republic of China discouraged public discussion of the war against Japan. It was an experience of victimization—and one that saw Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek fighting for the same goals. But now, as China grows more powerful, the meaning of the war is changing. Rana Mitter argues that China’s reassessment of the war years is central to its newfound confidence abroad and to mounting nationalism at home. China’s Good War begins with the academics who shepherded the once-taboo subject into wider discourse. Encouraged by reforms under Deng Xiaoping, they researched the Guomindang war effort, collaboration with the Japanese, and China’s role in forming the post-1945 global order. But interest in the war would not stay confined to scholarly journals. Today public sites of memory—including museums, movies and television shows, street art, popular writing, and social media—define the war as a founding myth for an ascendant China. Wartime China emerges as victor rather than victim. The shifting story has nurtured a number of new views. One rehabilitates Chiang Kai-shek’s war efforts, minimizing the bloody conflicts between him and Mao and aiming to heal the wounds of the Cultural Revolution. Another narrative positions Beijing as creator and protector of the international order that emerged from the war—an order, China argues, under threat today largely from the United States. China’s radical reassessment of its collective memory of the war has created a new foundation for a people destined to shape the world.

Jews and the Civil War

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Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814771130
Total Pages : 446 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Jews and the Civil War by : Jonathan D. Sarna

Download or read book Jews and the Civil War written by Jonathan D. Sarna and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An erotic scandal chronicle so popular it became a byword... Expertly tailored for contemporary readers. It combines scurrilous attacks on the social and political celebritites of the day, disguised just enough to exercise titillating speculatuion, with luscious erotic tales." —Belles Lettres This story concerns the return of to earth of the goddess of Justice, Astrea, to gather information about private and public behavior on the island of Atalantis. Manley drew on her experience as well as on an obsessive observation of her milieu to produce this fast paced narrative of political and erotic intrigue.

Witness

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Author :
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN 13 : 1328802698
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (288 download)

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Book Synopsis Witness by : Ariel Burger

Download or read book Witness written by Ariel Burger and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2018 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the vein of Tuesdays with Morrie, a devoted protaegae and friend of one of the world's great thinkers takes us into the sacred space of the classroom, showing Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel not only as an extraordinary human being, but as a master teacher"--

Johannes Brahms

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0679745823
Total Pages : 754 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (797 download)

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Book Synopsis Johannes Brahms by : Jan Swafford

Download or read book Johannes Brahms written by Jan Swafford and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1999-12-07 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book "This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms."--The Plain Dealer Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography. Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive career. In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors, the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores and notebooks late in his life. Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life--particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann--and on his professional rivalry with Lizst and Wagner. "[Johannes Brahms] will no doubt stand as the definitive work on Brahms, one of the monumental biographies in the entire musical library."--London Weekly Standard "It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's biography that Brahms's sadness becomes palpable.... [Swafford] manages to construct a full-bodied human being."--The New York Times Book Review