Friday, March 04, 2011

"Fortunate Sons: The 120 Chinese Boys Who Came to America, Went to School, and Revolutionized an Ancient Civilization" by L. Leibovitz and M. Miller

"Ahead of the Curve" by DEBORAH FALLOWS, © New York Times, March 4, 2011. (Sunday Book Review)

"... Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller’s Fortunate Sons ... story begins with Yung Wing, who came to America in the late 1840s. The first Chinese student admitted to Yale, he returned to his homeland in 1854, determined not to be the last. Under his tutelage, 120 Chinese boys crossed the Pacific in the 1870s ... Leibovitz and Miller use the newcomers’ experiences as pretexts for discourses on extraneous subjects. One such ... a lengthy discussion of the Central Pacific Railroad, ethnic tensions involving its Chinese work crews ... And they introduce a number of small but cumulatively unfortunate errors ... " [More]

[Courtesy Google Alerts.]