“The unlikely story of Lea’s attempts to train a cadre of soldiers in American Chinatowns who would return to their homeland to make it a modern world power.” —Pacific Historical Review As a five-feet-three-inch hunchback who weighed about 100 pounds, Homer Lea (1876–1912), was an unlikely candidate for life on the battlefield, yet he became a world-renowned military hero. Homer Lea: American Soldier of Fortune paints a revealing portrait of a diminutive yet determined man who never earned his valor on the field of battle, but left an indelible mark on his times. Lawrence M. Kaplan draws from extensive research to illuminate the life of a “man of mystery,” while also yielding a clearer understanding of the early twentieth-century Chinese underground reform and revolutionary movements. Lea’s career began in the inner circles of a powerful Chinese movement in San Francisco that led him to a generalship during the Boxer Rebellion. Fixated with commanding his own Chinese army, Lea’s inflated aspirations were almost always dashed by reality. Although he never achieved the leadership role for which he strived, he became a trusted advisor to revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty. As an author, Lea garnered fame for two books on geopolitics: The Valor of Ignorance, which examined weaknesses in the American defenses and included dire warnings of an impending Japanese-American war, and The Day of the Saxon, which predicted the decline of the British Empire. More than a character study, this biography provides insight into the establishment and execution of underground reform and revolutionary movements within US immigrant communities and in southern China, as well as early twentieth-century geopolitical thought.

One of the foremost strategists of the American Army in the first decade of the twentieth century warns of the great danger of militarized Japan and forcasts -- 44 years before it actually happened -- the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

This is a new release of the original 1934 edition.

The struggle in China between the Manchus and the old Ming Dynasty had been going on for over three centuries when Captain Ansel O’Banion signed his name in blood to the secret oath with the Po Wong Wui and became involved in the Chinese revolutionary movement. The book reveals how O’Banion commanded the secret-training of Chinese in some 21 cities in the United States; how he was initiated into the secret society of the Po Wong Wui; how the Royalists in this country try to take over the revolutionary movement and attempted to assassinate Dr. Sun Yat-Sen; how he smuggled Dr. Sun into this country; how he obtained for General Homer Lea the secret war plans of Japan, upon which Lea based his book, The Valor of Ignorance; how the Chinese trained in this country as officers were smuggled into China where they enlisted as privates in the Royal Manchu Army, ready to take over when the revolution occurred and why, when the revolution finally happened at Double Ten Day (October 10, 1911) as the Chinese call the Tenth Day of the tenth Month, this revolution was the first great, practically bloodless revolution in the history of the world.

Camellia, Anemone, Primula, Rosa, Rhododendron, growth form, tree, shrub, herb, alpine.

The rollicking story of a young man who goes to China with the misguided notion that he will help bring the Chines into the modern world, only to be schooled by the most resourceful and creative operators he would ever meet.

Chronicles the life of Ruth Tsao Chai, one of China's first college graduates, from her survival during civil and foreign wars to her non-traditional burial.