Fortunate Sons
Author(s): Liel Leibovitz
At the twilight of the nineteenth century, China sent a detachment of boys to America in order to learn the ways of the West, modernise the antiquated empire, and defend it from foreigners invading its shores. After spending a decade in New England's finest schools, the boys returned home, driven by a pioneering spirit of progress and reform. Their lives in America influenced, not only their thinking, but also their nation's endeavour to become a contemporary world power, an endeavour that resonates powerfully today. Drawing on diaries, letters and other first-person accounts, Fortunate Sons tells a remarkable tale, weaving together the dramas of personal lives with the momentous thrust of a nation reborn. Shedding light on a crucial yet largely unknown period in China's history, Fortunate Sons provides insight into the issues concerning that nation today, from its struggle towards economic supremacy to its fraught relationship with the United States.
Product Information
The story of the West's engagement with China is often told through the voices of colonists, correspondents and fortune-seekers who sailed East a century ago. Fortunate Sons is a captivating look at the reverse journey: a page-turning narrative about Chinese patriots schooled in the United States who returned home to modernize a moribund, imperial society. This book is a reminder that historically, US-China relations are more than political; Liebovitz and Miller have unearthed an important, and all but forgotten, story that resonates today. - Michael Meyer, author of "The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed"
Liel Leibovitz is an academic and the author of Aliya: Three Generations of American-Jewish Immigration to Israel (St. Martins, 2006), which was a Jewish Book Council notable book in 2006. He is a former editor at The Jewish Week and has a book The Chosen Peoples, co-authored with Todd Gitlin coming out September 2010.
Matthew Miller is a writer and journalist. He has a degree in Art History from NYU and is a graduate of Columbia University's School of Journalism.
Residence: New York City Hometown: Miller – Cold Spring Harbor, New York, Leibovitz – Tel Aviv, Israel
General Fields
- :
- : WW Norton & Co
- : WW Norton & Co
- : 0.42
- : 01 April 2011
- : 235mm X 156mm X 28mm
- : United States
- : 01 April 2011
- : books
Special Fields
- : Liel Leibovitz
- : Hardback
- : 951.035
- : 288