Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) was the preeminent leader of China's republican revolution. He did much to inspire and organize the movement that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1911 and through the Kuomintang party paved the way for the eventual reunification of the country.

Sun Yat-sen was born on Nov. 12, 1866, into a peasant household in Choyhung in Kwangtung near the Portuguese colony of Macao. His early education, like his birthplace, established him as a man of two worlds, China and the West. After a rudimentary training in the Chinese classics in his village school, he was sent to Hawaii in 1879 to join his émigré elder brother. There he enrolled at an Anglican college where he studied Western science and religion. Upon graduation in 1882, he returned to his native village, but he soon was banished for defacing the village idols.

Though he returned home briefly to undergo an arranged marriage...