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In the closing years of the Qing dynasty, Chinese nationalists and liberals looked beyond the country’s borders for solutions and for safety. For many reformers and radicals, overseas Chinese communities became lifelines for ideas, money and recruits to overthrow the Manchu regime. Chief among these revolutionaries was Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), later hailed as the “father of modern China.” Sun embodied a new Chinese nationalism shaped by Western education and global connections, and he spent much of 1895–1911 in exile building a worldwide revolutionary network. From Hawaii to Hong Kong, Tokyo to Singapore, and London to Vancouver, Sun organized secret societies…