Tong Shao-Yi and His Family

Tong Shao-Yi and His Family presents a biography of the Chinese statesman Tong Shao-Yi, one of the first hundred boys sent from China in the 1870's to live with American families and attend American schools. Tong returned to China in 1881 to become a protege of the statesman Yuan Shikai and the most influential of the "Young China" group of Western-educated diplomats and officials. One of the founders of the Chinese Republic in 1911-1912, Tong served briefly as Prime Minister and was later often sought for advice and collaboration by contending factions until his mysterious assassination in 1938. David G. Hinners relates the story of Tong through a unique personal perspective developed through historical research and correspondence-by himself, and previously, by his two aunts-with members of Tong's extended family. This direct correspondence with Tong's descendants in China-who included an engineer educated in the United States (while growing up in the home of the author's grandparents) and a schoolteacher whom the author interviewed in China in 1987-relates not only the story of Tong and his family, but also the impact of a century of political developments on the people of China.