For nearly two centuries, Shanghai has been one of the world's most important cities. For several decades across the end of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, it was divided politically between the Chinese city, the French concession and the International Settlement composed of the concessions of Britain, the USA and other imperial powers. This book is a history of the government of that settlement: the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC). As its author Isabella Jackson rightly points out, given the importance of Shanghai as a site of Imperialism in China, and as a place where events that led to China's emergence as a modern nation occurred, it is astounding that there has been no history of this important institution. Jackson convincingly argues that the SMC was an example of transnational colonialism. It was not an agent of the British or any other state, yet nor was it entirely independent of state interests. Instead, it was autonomous, representing the interests of ratepayers within the International Settlement, although its remit extended to include all of the many thousands of mostly Chinese residents. The individual chapters deftly weave local Shanghai developments into global stories. They paint a picture of municipal officials who were seeking to manage an ever expanding and more complicated urban space, while having to accommodate Chinese interests and at times outright opposition, and at the same time ever mindful of how they were sometimes representatives of their respective imperial powers.

The book begins, as the history of any institution should, with its financing. The SMC drew its funds from rates paid by its residents, many of whom were Chinese. Expenditure on capital projects required loans, which came from Chinese financiers as well as foreign banks, and the Council itself also issued debentures. Chapter 2 relates the well-known struggle of Chinese ratepayers to gain membership on the council, but does not reduce the history of the SMC membership to this simple tale of Chinese nationalism. Instead, in highlighting the connections between council members and staff of different nationalities, Jackson emphasizes the importance of social networks to the governance of the International Settlement. Building on this firm foundation, the rest of the book focuses on the SMC's activities, and none were more important than ensuring that the citizens of the International Settlement were safe. In response to the threat of local rebellion, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps was established in 1853. It too was a transnational organization, and in discussing the contribution of, for example, the Russian members of the corps, Jackson draws attention to one of the many smaller communities in Shanghai often left by the wayside in other histories of the city.

At times, such as during the Jiangsu–Zhejiang War in 1924, and during the Japanese invasion of the city in 1932, Chinese in Shanghai were glad of the presence of foreign military and police. However, at others, most notably during the strikes of 30 May 1925, nationalism led to tensions with the SMC. In providing security, the SMC acted at times like a national state and at others like a municipal government, and this was also true of its management of public health and workers’ rights. Vaccination campaigns were intrusive, and sparked opposition from Chinese residents of the settlement. However, given that disease is no respecter of national boundaries, the SMC co-operated with the French and Chinese governments, and although there were always tensions there were some successes, such as the establishment of a mental hospital. Just as the SMC collaborated with the League of Nations in health, so it did with the International Labour Organization on improvement of workers’ welfare. Indeed, it was through this organization that the SMC came under global pressure to end child labour, and this brought Eleanor Hinder, perhaps the organization's most prominent woman, to the fore. Progress was slow, however, until after the Nationalist Government passed its own factory law in 1929, after which there were gradual improvements for thousands of workers in the International Settlement – although the SMC ensured that factory inspections were carried out by foreign inspectors, and not Chinese.

The debate over who should inspect factories within the International Settlement shows that, by the 1930s, the SMC was struggling to justify its existence in the twilight of empire. It hung on into World War II, its transnational nature providing a modicum of protection for the citizens of the International Settlement. War saw the SMC act like a state one last time, and Jackson's description throughout the book of how this organization navigated competing Shanghai, Chinese and imperial interests is a compelling story: global history at its best. One minor quibble is her characterization of Shanghai as a ‘global city’, a backdrop to the transnationalism of the SMC. This is not the place to debate the merits of Sassen's theory. It may apply to the International Settlement with its banks, hotels, jazz bars and cosmopolitan population, but is less relevant to the poverty-stricken alleyways of the Chinese city. This is the only place in the book in which Jackson's analysis perhaps falls short, given Shanghai's complicated political and social geography. Otherwise, she has given us a beautifully crafted account of how global and local processes intertwined to shape what continues to be one of the world's most important cities, which will be on the reading lists of scholars and students of Shanghai for years to come.