God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393315561)

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.

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
ISBN-10: 0393315568
ISBN-13: 9780393315561
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 12/17/1996
Pages: 448
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.34lbs
Size: 9.19h x 6.13w x 1.05d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 03/23/1997 pg. 28
Publishers Weekly 12/30/1996