The Sassoon and the Kadoorie families  stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than 175 years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world but remained blind to the country’s deep inequalities and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.

This book has been enthusiastically reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Economist, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications.