Product Description

A powerful account of the largest uprising in human history--the Taiping rebellion (1845-64)--in which 20 million Chinese were left dead, God's Chinese Son tells "a story that reaches beyond China into our world and time; a story of faith, hope, passion, and a fatal grandiosity" (Washington Post Book World). Photos Author lectures & tour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76445 in Books
• Published on: 1996-12-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In what PW called a "masterful history," Spence recounts the mid-19th century Taiping Rebellion, in which a Chinese Christian fanatic seized Nanking and ruled his "New Jerusalem" for a decade.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A China specialist who's had two LJ Best Books (The Search for Modern China in 1991 and The Memory Palace of Mateo Ricci in 1984) examines a bloody 19th-century uprising in China whose leader claimed to be the son of God.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
With a scholar's love of detail, a cinematic eye for color, and an evident passion for dramatic narrative, [Spence] gives us an irresistible tale--all the grander for its grip on history.

Customer Reviews

Best Taiping history in English is second best available
Professor Spence has set a high standard with exceptional and appealing English language books on Chinese history, and this volume one of his best. It is a sweeping and detailed history, a truly beautiful, handsome book full of wonderful illustrations and graphics.

But it is not the best book ever written on the Taiping movement. That title belongs to the (unfortunately long out of print) 1973 "Taiping Revolutionary Movement" by Jen Yu-Wen. Profesor Jen spent 50 years investigating the Taiping history, and had a master's command of all of the sources availalble in Chinese and English. Jen's book, which is encyclopedic, but extremely readable, was one of the sources for "God's Chinese Son". Ironically, Spence wrote the foreword for Jen's book.

Spence's perspective and treatment, along with his writing style, is detached, and from a discernible Western bias. This is typical of not only Spence's histories, but those of Fairbank, etc. Jen's book takes one much closer to the on-ground, cultural, psychological and physical realities. Jen's chronicle of the military movements is far more detailed. The general dearth of sources available in English that offer the Chinese view of Chinese history is tragic.

Nevertheless, Spence's is easily the best English language Taiping history in print, and still highly recommended.

An Unbelievable Story Told in a Believable Manner
This story of the rebel and religious leader, Hong Xiuquan, is a weird and horrifying read. It is almost unbelievable that this one man, after having a dream of ascending to heaven, can have mustered a rebellion against the Manchu Dynasty that was stunning in its success and devasting in its failure as twenty million Chinese lay dead at the end of the almost twenty year rebellion. Jonathan D. Spence, in God's Chinese Son, covers this material with his usual combination of both writing skill and scholary research. The reader may occasionally get bogged down in the fine details, particulary with no knowledge of Chinese history from this period, but this book provides a wonderful ride through an unusual time and place in history.

Narrative history as good as it gets.
God's Chinese Son is a stunning work of historical scholarship -- an equal mixture of solid documentation, cogent argument and imaginative brilliance. Spence takes the historical biography form and uses it not only to illuminate a fascinating life, but also to turn that life into a window on his own rich, layered reconstruction of 19th-century China. Well worth buying, reading and re-reading; a must for the serious student and the casual reader alike.