God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
by Jonathan D. Spence
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan D. SpenceEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1997-01
ISBN: 0393315568
Number of pages: 430
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
Book Review: Fascinating subject. Poor execution.
Summary: 2 Stars
This book jumps all over the place trying to get inside its subject's head but also trying to present a picture of China in the middle 19th century. It fails at both counts. Even though Spence spends an inordinate amount of time talking about Qing's life before and after he becomes a cult leader, there's nothing in it to suggest what happened to turn him into a rabid pseudo-Christian. The rules of the Taipeng rebels including restrictive gender separation and executions partly explain some aspects of his psyche, but then they bring up the question concerning how he got followers.
And most of the anecdotes are about him failing to start the movement. Next thing you know he's got a large army of followers and he's taking over cities. Then he's running these cities. There are some interesting stories like the anti-Taipeng official who was caught trying to let in the Chinese army. First he accused his informer of being an opium addict which got his informer killed and then when tortured for his co-conspirators he named several loyal Taipeng generals and tricked the Taipeng into killing 23 of their best men.
And even that story doesn't answer the question of what made the followers so fanatical. By the end of the book there are some descriptions of the ruined countryside but I never get the feeling that there was a war being fought that was nearly as bloody as the descriptions. Spence cannot balance the intimate and the grand pictures like Philip Dwyer does in Napoleon: The Path to Power. Nor does he provide much insight into the minds of fanatics and their followers, not nearly as much as The Family (although to be fair the latter is a classic of cult psychology.)
I want to read books about this subject. So it's not all bad, but I wish that this had been a better introduction.
Summary of God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
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.General Books
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