Book review: The Second Tang Dynasty - The 12 Sons of Fragrant Mountain Who Changed China, by Mark O'Neill
During a visit to his mother-in-law, author, journalist and South China Morning Post contributor Mark O'Neill listens to a recollection of life growing up in Tangjiawan township in Guangdong during the Sino-Japanese war.
by Mark O’Neill
Joint Publishing
During a visit to his mother-in-law, author, journalist and South China Morning Post contributor Mark O'Neill listens to a recollection of life growing up in Tangjiawan township in Guangdong during the Sino-Japanese war.
His mother-in-law mentions that there seemed to be a lot of important people living around the city now known as Zhongshan, but previously called Xiangshan, or Fragrant Mountain.
A little research confirms her suspicion: the area produced the first Chinese to study in the US, the first Chinese doctor of Western medicine, the first president of Tsinghua University, one of the first admirals of the modern Chinese navy, and some of the most important businessmen of the late Qing and early Republican eras.
So how did this small corner of China, far from Beijing, produce so many of the people who would go on to shape the future of the country?
O'Neill endeavours to answer this question through a series of 12 mini-biographies of men who helped to lay the foundations for the 21st-century re-emergence of the Chinese nation.