God's Chinese Son - The Paiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan

Synopsis: Whether read for its powerful account of the largest uprising in human history, or for its foreshadowing of the terrible convulsions suffered by twentieth-century China, or for the narrative power of a great historian at his best, God's Chinese Son must be read. At the center of this history of China's Taiping rebellion (1845-64) stands Hong Xiuquan, a failed student of Confucian doctrine who ascends to heaven in a dream and meets his heavenly family: God, Mary, and his older brother, Jesus. He returns to earth charged to eradicate the "demon-devils," the alien Manchu rulers of China. His success carries him and his followers to the heavenly capital at Nanjing, where they rule a large part of south China for more than a decade. Their decline and fall, wrought by internal division and the unrelenting military pressures of the Manchus and the Western powers, carry them to a hell on earth. Twenty million Chinese are left dead. 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. (Jan.) Biography: Jonathan D. Spence is Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he has taught for thirty years. He has been awarded MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The Search for Modern China won the Lionel Gelber Award and the Kiriyama Book Prize. The Taiping rebellion in mid-nineteenth century China, led by Hong Xiuquan, was one of the strangest and most violent events in human history, costing at least twenty million lives. From his capital in Nanjing, Hong ruled over his 'Heavenly Kingdom' for eleven years, establishing absolute power over a vast area of northern China. Historian Spence recalls some of the historical epics of the nineteenth century here, adding insight into the minds of the participants, Hong himself in particular, in a book that is both intimately detailed and epic in scope--From publisher description The Taiping Revolution in the mid 19th-century cost 20 million lives. It was led by Hong Xiquan, a visionary, who believed he had been charged to destroy the "demon devils" who did not share his beliefs. After many battles, massacres and sieges, Hong's army seized power over a vast territory. A remarkable, unconventional account of one of the most bizarre and bloody events of Chinese history, the Taiping Rebellion, by the leading historian of China