Be a part of a live, interactive conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Kaufman, author of The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China, an epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era.

In this propulsive narrative, Kaufman reveals a hidden portrait of twentieth-century China, one intrinsically connected to Baghdad and Bombay, London and World War II. Inspired by an accidental visit to the Cathay Hotel, located on Shanghai’s famous waterfront and built by scion of the Sassoon dynasty Victor Sassoon, Kaufman uncovers two rival Jewish dynasties that flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as China surged into the modern era. In The Last Kings of Shanghai, the long-hidden odysseys of the Sassoons and the Kadoories shed light on China’s rise as a global power and its pressures of breakneck modernization, revealing a key to understanding global politics and China in the twenty-first century.

Jonathan Kaufman has written and reported on China for thirty years for The Boston Globe, where he covered the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square; The Wall Street Journal, where he served as China bureau chief from 2002 to 2005; and Bloomberg News. He is the author of three books including Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America, winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Kaufman is director of the School of Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston. Kaufman will be interviewed by retired Delaware Family Court Judge, Aida Waserstein, a resident of both Wilmington and Lewes, Delaware.

This event is co-sponsored by Seaside Jewish Community and Browseabout Books.

We invite you to support the author and by purchasing a copy of the book from one of our local independent bookstore, Browseabout Books, by clicking HERE. Call-in orders are accepted or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website. Each copy purchased comes with a signed archival bookplate.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting.

If you have need assistance with registration or getting your Zoom invitation, please email us.

Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here.