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.

About the Author
Jonathan D. Spence (1936-2021) was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught for more than forty years. He was 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.

Reviews
"Marvelous and new. . . . [Spence] is the pre-eminent literary historian of China." -- Richard Bernstein - New York Times



Book Information
ISBN 9780393315561
Author Jonathan D. Spence
Format Paperback
Page Count 448
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 652g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 157mm * 33mm