Reviews

'Like Walter Benjamin in his 'Arcades project', Wasserstrom uses elegant, shrewdly chosen vignettes to illuminate the paradox of urban modernity as simultaneous rupture and nostalgia. If he deflates some of Shanghai's current, boosterish hyperbole, it is only because he is so attentive to the many faces of its past.' - Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz

'Professor Jeffery Wasserstrom has written the most enthralling history of modern Shanghai there is. Global Shanghai does not claim to be a definitive history (it focuses on seven pivotal years set a quarter of a century apart - 1850, 1875, 1900, 1925, 1950, 1975, 2000 - hence the "fragments" of the title), nor does it claim to provide definitive answers to the intriguing questions it raises. Instead, the University of California history professor seeks to frame those questions into a meaningful historical context. The result is a meticulously researched, cornucopic splendiferous wonder. Yes, we did say history book.' - J.F.K. Miller, That's Shanghai

'Adopting a global rather than Eurocentric perspective, Wasserstrom has produced a fascinating, well-researched and empirically grounded study that sheds much needed light on Shanghai's emergence, and re-emergence, as a cosmopolitan city of global importance. Highly Recommended.' - Mark Anthony, History News Network, Jan 2009

'...his descriptions and arguments are well researched and presented. Using newspapers, tourist guides, memoirs and photographs, he makes his points and backs them up. Best of all, he’s not afraid to reach to some pretty unexpected sources for inspiration.' - Far Eastern Economic Review, April 2009

'What makes this scholarly and theory-laden book fascinating is that it gives unusual snapshots of various Shanghai institutions and events in digestible 25-year increments...it's a book well worth reading, if only for the important final question it raises: is Shanghai's future being created or just revisited' - Mina Choi, China International Business, April 2009

'What makes this scholarly and theory-laden book fascinating is that it gives unusual snapshots of various Shanghai institutions and events in digestible 25-year increments.' - China International Business, April 2009

'informative and thought-provoking' - Xujun Eberlein, blogcritics.org, May 2009

'...Global Shanghai, 1850-2010, Jeffrey Wassertrom's captivating book on Shanghai's modern history' - Jonathan Fenby, SOAS, Times Higher Education, July 2009