Sun Yat-Sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution

Sun Yat-Sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution by Harold Z. Schiffrin. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780520017528.

The enigmatic personal qualities that marked Sun Yat-sen during his lifetime have encouraged controversy concerning him ever since his death more than a generation ago. Mr. Schiffrins book deals with the first forty years of Suns life, and attempts to find the key to this controversial personality. His study is at once biography and history, for it goes beyond Sun to the whole texture of Chinese history of Suns time. Drawing on diplomatic archives, police reports, personal interviews, contemporary newspapers, and other hitherto unused sources in Chinese, Japanese, and Western languages, the author reveals unsuspected facets of Suns versatile plotting on three continents, and traces the convolutions of his pragmatic style in unprecedented detail.