Home History Transpacific Reform and Revolution
book: Transpacific Reform and Revolution
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Transpacific Reform and Revolution

The Chinese in North America, 1898-1918
  • Zhongping Chen
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2023
View content
View more publications by Stanford University Press
To Publisher Page

About this book

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the turbulent end of China's imperial system, violent revolutionary movements, and the fraught establishment of a republican government. During these decades of reform and revolution, millions of far-flung "overseas Chinese" remained connected to Chinese domestic movements.

  This book uses rich archival sources and a new network approach to examine how reform and revolution in North American Chinatowns influenced political change in China and the transpacific Chinese diaspora from 1898 to 1918. Historian Zhongping Chen focuses on the transnational activities of Kang Youwei, Sun Yat-sen, and other politicians, especially their mobilization of the Chinese in North America to join reformist or revolutionary parties in patriotic fights for a Western-style constitutional monarchy or republic in China. These new reformist and revolutionary parties, including the first Chinese women's political organization, led transpacific movements against American anti-Chinese racism in 1905 and supported constitutional reform and the Republican Revolution in China around 1911, achieving transpacific expansion through innovative use of cross-cultural political ideologies and intertwined institutional and interpersonal networks. Through network analysis of the origins, interrelations, and influences of Chinese reform and revolution in North America, this book makes a significant contribution to modern Chinese history, Asian American and Asian Canadian history, and Chinese diasporic scholarship.

Author / Editor information

Zhongping Chen is Professor of History at the University of Victoria.

Reviews

"[An] extraordinarily detailed and exceptionally researched study" —Gregory S. Kealey, Labour/Le Travail --- "As an esteemed scholar renowned for his expertise in Chinese history, Chen's inaugural book on Chinese Canadian history erects a new landmark within this scholarly domain: it points out a transnational direction, offers a transnationally selected, extensive amount of source materials, illuminates the gender aspect, adds new methodology, and corrects errors of earlier historians." —Letian Wang, BC Studies --- "Zhongping Chen uses network analysis to shed dramatic new light on how the North American Chinese diaspora interacted with the republican movement in China to help topple the fading Qing dynasty. A new landmark of history and methods in the understanding of the critical post-1911 period in Chinese political life." —Mark Granovetter, Stanford University --- "Long overdue, this deeply researched book embeds Kang Youwei and Sun Yatsen's North American journeys in the dynamic networks of overseas Chinese who mobilized amid the fall of the Qing dynasty. Using an authoritative array of Chinese-language records, Zhongping Chen adeptly corrects longstanding myths and recovers into historical visibility the patriotic activists who campaigned to save their homeland." —Madeline Y. Hsu, University of Texas at Austin --- "Zhongping Chen has written the most authoritative and excellent work in English on the dynamics of the radical transpacific movements led by Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen, challenging misperceptions and misinformation about this period." —Sue Fawn Chung, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Maps and Figures

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Preface: In Pursuit of a New Network Approach to Overseas Chinese Political History

    xi
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgments

    xxi
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Abbreviations

    xxv
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Notes on Romanization and Currencies

    xxvii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Introduction

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 1 Kang Youwei and the Rise of Overseas Chinese Political Reforms from North America

    17
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 2 The Crest and Ebb of Chinese Reform Politics from North America to the Pacific Rim

    63
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 3 Transpacific Interactions between Chinese Reformers and Revolutionaries

    118
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter 4 Sun Yat-sen and the Unfinished Chinese Republican Revolution across the Pacific

    170
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Conclusion: Toward a Network Revolution in the Transpacific Chinese Diaspora

    219
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    229
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Bibliography

    309
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    343
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 31, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781503636255
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
404
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503636255
eBook ISBN: 9781503636255
Keywords for this book
Chinese in North America; Transpacific Chinese diaspora; the United States; Canada; Kang Youwei; Sun Yat-sen; Constitutional Reform; the Republican Revolution; the Qing dynasty; the Republic of China.
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2026 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 28.2.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781503636255/html
Scroll to top button