![]() ![]() So Seagrave reconstructs-through intriguingly assembled bits of evidence-the checkered American sojourn of the gregarious young Chinese runaway, his Shanghai rise (via still-shadowy tong connections) to wealth and prominence as ""that unusual commodity, an American-trained Chinese preacher turned comprador."" Then there were the daughters: eldest Ai-ling, plain and smart and ""iron-willed""-who set off for American schooling at 13, later rejected the advances of the much-older, unsteady Sun (""He was a dreamer. ![]() Founding father Charlie Soong (1866-1918), thinks Seagrave-son of Burma doctor Gordon, author of Bitter Rain-became an inspirational legend (thanks to 1920s missionaries, Henry Luce, and Emily Hahn) without due note, by historians, of his part in financing Sun Yat-sen's aborted 1911 Revolution. ![]() More fabulous than fiction-because the sinister and shameless doings that Seagrave recounts, with kaleidoscopic historical detailing, involve the celebrated, idolized-and-reviled Soongs. ![]()
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