Paul French Books in Order

French examines the emergence of a vast Asian consumer class after the region's financial turmoil. The book considers purchasing power, shifting tastes and fast-moving markets, asking how businesses can understand the people reshaping the region's economy.

French examines North Korea's history, political system and economic crises alongside its nuclear diplomacy. Accounts of leadership, famine and tentative reform explore how the isolated state survives, and what its choices mean for prospects of peace.

Carl Crow arrived in Shanghai as a journalist and became an influential advertising pioneer. French follows his adventures through revolution, diplomacy and war, using an unusually varied career to illuminate the city's transformation into a commercial metropolis.

Foreign correspondents watched China change from the Opium Wars to the Communist revolution. French traces their reporting, rivalries and adventures, exploring how newspapers and their writers shaped the wider world's understanding of a turbulent country.

China's economic growth brings changing diets, urban lifestyles and rising obesity. French examines how retailers, city planning and new middle-class aspirations affect health, and why the consequences could strain public services and influence the wider economy.

The international movement of oil depends on shipping routes vulnerable to piracy, conflict and environmental pressure. Reporting from tankers and tracing Asia's growing demand, French examines the fragile supply chains behind an often overlooked global necessity.

This illustrated guide reconstructs Shanghai's streets before 1949, pairing historical names with landmarks and anecdotes. Maps, advertisements and photographs help readers navigate vanished places and recover the people, businesses and nightlife associated with the old city.

The murder of British schoolgirl Pamela Werner draws two detectives into Peking's troubled expatriate world in 1937. As invasion approaches and the investigation stalls, her father's search for answers exposes secrets others would rather leave buried.

Eight portraits reveal the foreigners inhabiting Peking's notorious Badlands during the 1920s and 1930s. Brothel owners, dancers, criminals and exploited women illuminate a district where survival, pleasure and violence intertwined behind the old city's walls.

French reshapes Lao She's short story Ding into a monologue for one performer. The adaptation accompanies an essay by Anne Witchard that places the story within Lao She's writing and considers the significance of its modernist influences.

China's delegates arrived at the Paris Peace Conference hoping to recover territory lost to Japan. French examines how their disappointment helped ignite the May Fourth Movement, connecting diplomatic betrayal with the country's long revolutionary transformation.

French traces Kim Jong-un's consolidation of power through purges, dynastic mythology and the leadership cult. Focusing on the Seventh Party Congress, he examines continuity and change within North Korea's secretive regime and the direction it might take.

Paul French examines the suppression of English-language books in Shanghai's International Settlement during 1940 and 1941. The study connects police action against D.H. Lawrence with competing censorship pressures as Japanese and German interests challenged the settlement's authorities.

Eyewitness accounts reconstruct Shanghai's catastrophic bombings on August 14, 1937. French follows the attacks around major hotels and the Great World amusement center, showing how a single afternoon brought devastation to a densely populated city.

Escaped convict Jack Riley and Viennese refugee Joe Farren build gambling and nightclub empires in 1930s Shanghai. Their rise unfolds amid poverty, political upheaval and war, as ambition and criminal power expose them to a destructive downfall.

Shanghai draws outsiders seeking opportunity, escape, fame and anonymity. French follows the people who arrived with different ambitions, tracing how an international city could become a place of possibility for some and a desperate refuge for others.

Jewish refugees leave wartime Shanghai for neutral Macao, hoping to find a route to freedom. Amid spies, escaped prisoners and displaced residents, one young woman's struggle becomes an act of resistance in a precarious colonial enclave.

Eighteen accounts revisit the foreigners drawn to Peking in the early twentieth century. Heiresses, writers, artists and less privileged visitors reveal contrasting experiences of a capital whose social worlds unfolded against a rapidly changing China.

French revisits the year Wallis Simpson spent in China before becoming the Duchess of Windsor. Her journey through a turbulent country offers a way to examine a controversial period in the making of a much mythologized public figure.

Former emperor Puyi and Empress Wanrong remain confined within the Forbidden City as their dynasty's future hangs in doubt. French uses personal records to examine their marriage, court intrigue and the imperial household's eventual expulsion.