SUN YAT-SEN

WadeGiles romanization Sun I-hsien, Pinyin Sun Yixian, original name (WadeGiles) Sun Wen, courtesy name Ti-hsiang, also called Jih-hsin, or Chung-shan born Nov. 12, 1866, Hsiang-shan, Kwangtung Province, China died March 12, 1925, Peking leader of the Chinese Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), known as the father of modern China. Influential in overthrowing the Manchu dynasty (1911), he served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China (191112) and later as de facto ruler (192325). Additional reading An old but still-useful biography is Lyon Sharman, Sun Yat-sen: His Life and Its Meaning (1934, reprinted 1973). More recent works include C. Martin Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen, Frustrated Patriot (1977), a scholarly treatment; Harold Z. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, Reluctant Revolutionary (1980); and Gottfried-Karl Kinderman (ed.), Sun Yat-sen: Founder and Symbol of China's Revolutionary Nation-Building (1982), a collection of symposium papers. Paul Linebarger, Sun Yat Sen and the Chinese Republic (1925, reprinted 1969), is a sympathetic, personal account. See also Howard L. Boorman (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, vol. 3, pp. 170189 (1970).