The Frozen Zoo
Megan Ogilvie
A Resonant Boom
Charles Foran
(pp.35-38)
The evolution of Shanghai’s urban form is thoroughly traced in Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren’s Building Shanghai: The Story of China’s Gateway (Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2006). The volume is lavishly illustrated and offers extensive information on the centerpieces of Shanghai architecture and design.
In Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City (New York: William Morrow, 2000), Stella Dong offers a history of the city that recounts as many seamy stories as one could ever hope to hear about the metropolis once dubbed the “Whore of Asia.” The extravagances, crimes, and characters that gave Old Shanghai its reputation are here in living, lurid detail, but Dong’s book is based on careful research and annotated to facilitate further exploration.
The rich atmosphere of pre-war Shanghai is conjured artfully in Man Booker Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel When We Were Orphans (New York: A. A. Knopf, 2000). A detective story of sorts, it recounts the efforts of a private investigator to unravel the mystery of his parents’ disappearance. Ishiguro is adept with his use of detail in bringing to life the city and its citizens as they were in the 1930s.
Finally, the Edward Burtynsky photos that haunted Charles Foran’s most recent trip to Shanghai are collected and reprinted in China (London, UK: Steidl, 2005).
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