Old Shanghai and the Clash of Revolution

The first half of the 20th century, life in Shanghai played out against a backdrop of shifting political maneuvers that eventually melded into the Pacific side of World War II, shattering the structures and burning off the patina that for centuries had made 'Old Shanghai' a world unto itself. In this personal history we follow one man through the cataclysmic changes in China during the past 75 years. Born just before the outbreak of the Second SinoA-Japanese War that meant the end of 'Old Shanghai,' his life spans JapanA's conquest of Shanghai in 1937 to the civil war and Communist takeover, through MaoA's desperate attempts to modernize a medieval country while fending off real and imagined threats of foreign intervention and subversion from within. Finally, after watching Deng Xiaoping open the economy while keeping a tight rein on social freedoms, in an atmosphere of burgeoning corruption, the protagonist makes it to the United States to see for himself what the tales of freedom and democracy might offer.