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Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came To America, Went To School, And Revolutionized An Ancient Civilization (2011)

by Liel Leibovitz(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0393070042 (ISBN13: 9780393070040)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: Interesting story Chinese kids sent to America in the 1800s as factions of the Qing Dynasty attempted to modernize. The story starts with a young man Yung Wing, who with help from foreign missionary friends, went to Yale in 1850. After struggling upon his return to China, he eventually found his way to helping another 120 boys come back to the U.S. to CT in the 1870s as high school students. These kids went on to help shape the end of the Qing dynasty and the start of the next phase of China through thick and thin, playing a part with struggles within various regimes, and with the foreign parties that looked to lay claim to China. It's not exactly a happy story, just a story perhaps, but an interesting one of the struggle to adapt to great changes.
review 2: A ... morelittle-known and fascinating story about 120 Chinese boys who came to Connecticut to learn English, complete high school and attend college in the 1870's in order to return to China and help bring her into the modern world. The story of the boys is amazing and inspiring but I especially appreciated the authors' abilitly to synthesize the complexities of 19th century Chinese social and political history. I have a much greater understanding of the challenges China faced, especially during the period when so many Chinese immigrated to America. There are lessons here if only we can take the time to understand them. less

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