As a five-feet-three-inch hunchback who weighed about 100 pounds, Homer
Lea (1876--1912), was an unlikely candidate for life on the battlefield,
yet he became a world-renowned military hero. Homer Lea: American
Soldier of Fortune paints a revealing portrait of a diminutive yet
determined man who never earned his valor on the field of battle, but
left an indelible mark on his times.
Lawrence M. Kaplan draws from extensive research to illuminate the life
of a "man of mystery," while also yielding a clearer understanding of
the early twentieth-century Chinese underground reform and revolutionary
movements. Lea's career began in the inner circles of a powerful Chinese
movement in San Francisco that led him to a generalship during the Boxer
Rebellion. Fixated with commanding his own Chinese army, Lea's inflated
aspirations were almost always dashed by reality. Although he never
achieved the leadership role for which he strived, he became a trusted
advisor to revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911
revolution that overthrew the Manchu Dynasty.
As an author, Lea garnered fame for two books on geopolitics: The Valor
of Ignorance, which examined weaknesses in the American defenses and
included dire warnings of an impending Japanese-American war, and The
Day of the Saxon, which predicted the decline of the British Empire.
More than a character study, Homer Lea provides insight into the
establishment and execution of underground reform and revolutionary
movements within U.S. immigrant communities and in southern China, as
well as early twentieth-century geopolitical thought.
