Shanghai

The Story of China's Most Dynamic City

By: Michael Dillon

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Hardcover | 17 September 2026 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
336 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.35 x 1.52 x 3.4

Hardcover

RRP $51.95

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A comprehensive new history of Shanghai, revealing its vital place in Chinese history and politics across the centuries

Home to 25 million people, Shanghai is the most populous and wealthiest city in China. A meeting point between China and the wider world, the city has become the beating heart of Chinese capitalism, a place of initiative, confidence, and forward thinking. It is a city of stark contradictions, suffused with both extreme wealth and poverty, luxury living, and a highly organised criminal underworld.

Michael Dillon explores the full history of Shanghai, from its origins as a small fishing village to the bustling financial hub of today. The city has been central to some of the most turbulent events in China's modern history, from the British and French colonial concessions of the nineteenth century, to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party and its vital role in Chinese economics and politics today. Shanghai is a fascinating portrait of China's most dynamic city-and explores its future role in the country's development.

About the Author

Michael Dillon is professor of history and an affiliate of King's College London's Lau China Institute. An expert on modern Chinese history, politics, and society, he is the author of numerous books, including We Need to Talk About Xi, a history of modern China, and biographies of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.

Industry Reviews

"An affectionate, knowledgeable, and highly readable account of the past and present of one of the great global cities. Michael Dillon draws on his long experience both with China, and with the city itself, to give an account from the very earliest origins, to the industrial, political and cultural drama of the 20th century-and the status of the city today as the country's most powerful statement of modernity with Chinese characteristics."-Kerry Brown, author of The Great Reversal

"A wonderfully clear and comprehensive depiction of one of the leading cities of the twenty-first century. Michael Dillon really does know every back street and neighbourhood, and his book covers all the contrasting manifestations of life in the old city-Chinese and Europeans, traders and compradores, industrialists and stockbrokers, writers and journalists, gangsters and revolutionaries, luxury and squalor."-Philip Snow, author of China and Russia

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