God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan by Jonathan D. Spence

Mar 24, 2011 William2 marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: china, 19-ce, nonfiction, history

Notes
1. The book is about the rise of one Hong Xiuquan in the mid-19th century China to become leader of the Christian millenarian sect that caused the Taiping Rebellion.

2. The book for me really begins with the excellent overview of the pantheistic religious traditions prevalent in Hong Xiuquan's home district of Hua, about forty miles north of Canton. This is no doubt the ignorance against which Hong will rant in furture chapters.

3. For some reason, perhaps because it's hardwired into me by ge ...more

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Feb 18, 2019 Dmitri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: china, christianity

Jonathan Spence remarks in his foreword that much has been written about the 1850 Taiping rebellion in the west, and even more in the east. Despite the rebels dubious theological foundation, China's communists canonized them as an early socialist movement. The Taiping have remained a topic of interest, with many books recently written. Spence synthesizes Chinese and English research, and also considers two newly discovered texts by the mid-century master of mayhem, Hong Xiuquan.

The story begins Jonathan Spence remarks in his foreword that much has been written about the 1850 Taiping rebellion in the west, and even more in the east. Despite the rebels dubious theological foundation, China's communists canonized them as an early socialist movement. The Taiping have remained a topic of interest, with many books recently written. Spence synthesizes Chinese and English research, and also considers two newly discovered texts by the mid-century master of mayhem, Hong Xiuquan.

The story begins with British missionaries in China. Disseminating Christianity was second only in importance to importing opium, and war helped secure both. Hong receives a bastardized Bible translation that resembles Buddhist and Confucian tracts in its Commandments and depictions of Hell. Having failed his civil service exams, Hong has visions he is the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Heavenly Father calls him to fight the demonic works of Confucian sacrifice and Taoist idolatry.

Hong travels the countryside to convert and baptize, and networks amongst his ethnic group fellows. Pirates, flushed out by the British occupation of Hong Kong, triad gangsters and highway bandits soon join forces. Early victories and Qing failures cement his hold on almost half the empire. At its greatest extent the would be dynasty reached the Yangtze river, and left thirty million dead in its wake. It nearly repealed the Manchu mandate, and foreshadowed their overthrow by a half century.

At the most basic level, Hong conflates Confucian family values with Christian doctrine. Where the New Testament allows God to have a son, Hong adds an extended family. God gains a wife, several other sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, as dynastic circumstance demands. The unruly clan includes mad uncles who channel the voices of Jesus and God himself, until family feuds and civil war doom everyone to a well deserved communal bloodbath.

It is difficult to tell if Hong's beliefs were intentional fraud, self delusion or a mixture of both. The Heavenly Kingdom had equal elements of religious cult and revolutionary army. Couched in millenarian mumbo jumbo, it's easy to dismiss the entire project as a lunatic fringe group, if not for the megalomaniac scale it attained. It is understandable how Mao, born shortly later, would have seen this as a period for study. The book situates events clearly within their context.

At times this book may reflect a historical bias towards British gunboat diplomacy and missionary zeal. Opium Wars were waged to 'end the restrictive system and open ports...establish churches and spread the word of God'. In regards to Chinese sovereignty a critique seems missing, although Spence notes the destabilizing effects of foreign pressure on the Qing empire. Western interventions seem rational and judicious, in contrast to Chinese intransigence and superstition.

The strength of the work is in its study of the religious mindset of the time. It shows the social and cultural setting that gave rise to a 19th century apocalyptic political movement. Although it isn't a general history, it does trace the major events along a narrative timeline. Spence tells the tale in the present tense, which adds a sense of immediacy to the proceedings. This is not a dry scholarly undertaking, nor is it pop history fluff. I would consider reading it before a simple military account. ...more

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Dec 14, 2020 Brian Griffith rated it really liked it

Shelves: china, religion-general, cultural-social-change, history-general

I've always been fascinated with this potential for popular religion to turn explosive. Spence gives a sensitive examination of how a failed, frustrated scholar with messianic ambitions set off a social chain reaction that almost blew China apart. ...more

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Aug 22, 2012 David rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-history

There are millions of goopy songs and movies about star-crossed lovers, but you hardly ever hear anything about star-crossed readers. I am a star-crossed reader.

I bought this book in the year 2000 and placed it lovingly in my crates of books to be shipped around the world to an extremely isolated location, where I planned to live for a few years. My vision: to sit out on the veranda on long tropical evenings, sipping cocktails and reading this particularly lunatic tale of historical mayhem and r There are millions of goopy songs and movies about star-crossed lovers, but you hardly ever hear anything about star-crossed readers. I am a star-crossed reader.

I bought this book in the year 2000 and placed it lovingly in my crates of books to be shipped around the world to an extremely isolated location, where I planned to live for a few years. My vision: to sit out on the veranda on long tropical evenings, sipping cocktails and reading this particularly lunatic tale of historical mayhem and religious fanaticism while getting pleasantly smashed.

For circs. too complicated to explain (involving do-gooding gone wrong), the box was routed into storage in Sterling, Virginia, where it languished for 12 years. Happily, the world, she is full of books, so the tropical veranda-sitting proceeded more or less as planned, with no shortage of mayhem, fictional and historical, to help pass the steamy hours. As planned, cocktails were served.

When at long last this handsome volume was liberated from its Old Dominion incarceration, I greeted it as a long-lost. I dropped everything to dive into it. Sadly, at the same time, I was enduring an avalanche of personal possessions arriving from various corners of the globe. Most of them were not the better for the years in storage and/or the trans-oceanic voyage, with the notable exception of the mistakenly-stored Bushmills, which survived Sterling hard time admirably.

But I digress. This is a serious book. It's very readable by the standards of serious history, but far from a light read. It would be an excellent book to read under the guidance of an expert, although experts in lunatic Chinese historical episodes are sadly thin on the ground most everywhere. If you have the twilight music of the tropical reptiles as a background, it may be possible to propel your imagination and get lost in this exotic time and place. However, when the background music is one's long-suffering wife taking a box-cutter to newly-arrived crates of personal possessions, concentration is more difficult, if only because of the visible thought balloons over l.-s. wife's head betray other possible uses for that box-cutter for those who fail to do their bit.

Under these circs., I throw myself on the mercy of the political correctness police by admitting that I had difficulty keeping the Chinese names in the narrative straight, as all the Yangs, Xiaos, Lis, and Fangs blended together in my mind in a way they might not have if they had been named, for example, O'Leary, Murkowsky, Benedetto, and Schultz. Ditto place names. I advise future readers to come at the text with a robust note-taking method in place.

The authorial style is a bit eccentric, but it's not wholly inappropriate for an eccentric historical episode. The author's decision to tell the story in the present tense is a bit distracting, as is his decision to relate the appearances of visions of Jesus (and his family) to Taiping Heavenly Kingdom leadership in a rather deadpan, matter-of-fact manner. Example (p. 107): “Jesus comes back to earth many times in 1848, and through the mouth Xiao brings varied messages to Hong Xiuquan and the God-worshippers.” Spence says that Jesus spoke through various trance-prone members of the Heavenly Kingdom ruling circle, but I would have love to hear what exactly happen. What was a trance like? Did the messages come mid-trance, or as a summary afterward? Was just anybody allowed to have a trance, or only members of the inner circle? Were there fakers? Attention seekers? How could they tell? What if members received conflicting messages?

In summary, the problems of a man and his book don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Clearly this book and I were not meant to be, even though I enjoyed the good times we had. If the circs. had been different, we could have made beautiful music together.

...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Ashley rated it liked it

Talk about your crazy Christians!!! I finally finished God’s Chinese Son, and man. It was more challenging than I thought to set aside my preconceived notions of what is acceptable, or at the very least, understandable regarding religious doctrine. For those not in the know, this book by Jonathan Spence follows the rise and end of the Taiping in nineteenth century china. And for those really not in the know, the Taiping were some crazy Christians. Seriously. It movement originated with a guy who Talk about your crazy Christians!!! I finally finished God’s Chinese Son, and man. It was more challenging than I thought to set aside my preconceived notions of what is acceptable, or at the very least, understandable regarding religious doctrine. For those not in the know, this book by Jonathan Spence follows the rise and end of the Taiping in nineteenth century china. And for those really not in the know, the Taiping were some crazy Christians. Seriously. It movement originated with a guy who had a nervous breakdown after failing his regional level examinations for the second time in a row. This episode included a vision of being taken up into Heaven where he met his true father (God), his older brother (Jesus) and this really cool important chick (Mary). He found out that it was his job to bring Christianity to the people of China and to drive out the Demons (Qing, the ruling dynasty) and essentially restore the Kingdom of Heaven that was promised in the ancient gospels.

At first I was somewhat with it, I mean aside from his crazy nervous breakdown, I was totally on the side of the Taiping. The rulers were doing a lot of things, (as well as the British) that deserved to be fought against. But, as the movement progressed, I was having a more and more difficult time figuring out how he garnered so many followers. I cannot explain to you how bizarre their doctrines are to me. Admittedly its my own preconceived Western thought of portrayed Christianity that is getting in the way. If I was a true open minded blank slate the Taiping might not seem so far out there, and had the book not set side by side the alterations that Hong Xiuquan was making in the religious texts it might not seem so obvious, but as it were, crazy.

The book on the other hand, was great. I highly recommend it for a work of nonfiction edification. It was engaging and I feel lots smarter and in fact enjoyed reading it. All of which are statements that I do not readily make towards weighty historical tomes. Even if you have no interest in the subject but you don’t mind the genre, go for it. To give you an idea of how important the civil war was in shaping Chinese culture even today, over twenty million died in the ‘skirmish’. It definitely makes me more willing to understand why the Chinese government tends to persecute Christians. I know this was a hundred and fifty years ago and several regimes and ways of life in the past but geez, the American Civil War still has an unsightly scar on our country, and we can’t claim nearly as many dead. (admittedly China had 30 million dead in the 1970’s because of famine which is a much more recent and relevant number) So read it. Spence does such an excellent job I don’t think that a person needs any background at all in Chinese history to understand any references or culture. ...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Stephen rated it really liked it

Interesting read. Hong Xiuquan was a local school teacher who took (and failed) the Confucian licenate tests several times to try to rise in position in the governing Qing bureaucracy. After his fourth and final attempt, Hong had a fever induced vision while he was bed ridden for forty days with an illness. Hong had recently read and been influenced by some protestant religious tracts that were being distributed at the examination site. The vision he had had him ascending to heaven where he foug ...more

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Sep 29, 2018 Jimmy rated it it was amazing

Many people in the West (United States and Europe) are probably not aware of the Taiping Rebellion which would be up there among one of history’s most terrible events. It took the lives of twenty to thirty million people and when one compare that to World War One which took seventeen million lives you get the magnitude of this horrific fourteen year war in China that center around a man name Hong Xiuquan who claim to be the “younger brother of Jesus.” If you are interested in the history of Chri Many people in the West (United States and Europe) are probably not aware of the Taiping Rebellion which would be up there among one of history’s most terrible events. It took the lives of twenty to thirty million people and when one compare that to World War One which took seventeen million lives you get the magnitude of this horrific fourteen year war in China that center around a man name Hong Xiuquan who claim to be the “younger brother of Jesus.” If you are interested in the history of Christianity, history of China, history of East meets West or military history or all the above this book is definitely for you. In fact I believe the maxim “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is relevant here. In order for us in the West to understand certain aspects of the current relationship of the West with China and also why the Chinese government has concern for Christianity one can learn a lot from the Taiping Rebellion.
The author Jonathan Spence as a historian has done an excellent work in this book. I was surprised at how much we can reconstruct of what happened and part of the credit goes to the Chinese scholars who did a good job archiving primary sources and made it accessible for even Western scholars. I was blown away at how the book describe early Protestant efforts to evangelize Chinese in Southern China and also the early days of Hong Xiquan who would later claim to be the younger brother of Jesus and lead a rebellion to try to bring about the Kingdom of God. Spence also did a good job of exploring Hong’s background such as Hong’s hometown history and happening in Hua that is a part of Guangdong province and also of Hong being part of a Chinese ethnic minority called the Hakka. The book tells us of how he received a Gospel tract, his confusion and eventual attempt to propagate his version of Christianity after experiencing a strange dream and short duration with a Western missionary. Hong travels from Guangdong province to Guangxi province where in an area known as Thistle Mountain the movement’s attempt to self-defend itself suddenly grow into a larger army fighting various secret societies, gangs, pirates, local militias and government forces. The book’s discussion of historical contribution to the rise of the Taiping was also very informative including the British colonialism’s indirect contribution to the rise of pirates moving inland and also the upheaval of society during this time that led some to the cause of the Taiping. The author is also to be commended for doing a good job reconstructing the theology of Hong and the Taiping whose early days were driven by visions and dreams. Here is a cautionary tale even for today of what happen when there’s a “Christianity” that is driven more by visions and subjectivism than an understanding of what the Bible really means. In the case of Hong he believed that he is Jesus’ younger brother who is called by God the Father to install a heavenly kingdom on earth in which all the world will eventually be under his earthly rule. Hong manages to get some loyal followers and some who became very good generals in their fight against the Qing government. Again the author’s knowledge of the background of what’s going on helps readers to understand the factors that contributed to the sudden surge of people joining Hong’s army and cause; the Emperor of China at the time were actually outsiders of the majority Han Chinese population; they were Manchus who were culturally distinct. The hatred for the Manchu’s rule was what partly motivated some to join the Taiping forces in order to overthrow the much hated Qing dynasty. This led to many surprising victories by the Taipings. I was surprised at how much distances they traveled and how much land they were able to grab such as the city of Wuhan, Anhui Province and the Taipings even making Nanjing the capital.
This book is partly an exploration of the history of Western missionaries in China, Western imperialism as much as local and regional Chinese social forces at play during the mid-1800s. I was struck at how the author at one moment could discuss the Bible, historical Chinese customary practices and then military history and movements. The book’s exploration of the diplomatic and naval dimensions of Western powers such as the United States, England and France as observers and participants in the conflict is also very fascinating. The amount of endnotes and bibliography is incredible; the author is to be commended for doing his research very well. Most fascinating to me are the primary sources that the book cite concerning mercenaries who worked for the Taiping which gave us a window into the Taiping from outsiders’ perspective that weren’t overtly hostile in slanting biases against them. Also fascinating are the book’s handling of primary sources from naval officers, diplomats and missionaries who had interactions with the Taipings at various levels and even interactions with Hong himself who enthrone himself as the emperor.
I took an unusually long time to finish this book. This is partly due to the fact that I read every end note of the books I read and there are a lot of them in the book. But it also is a heavy subject. The theology of the Taipings are very disturbing for orthodox biblical Christians; Hong and other lower Taiping “kings” uses Christianity for their own purposes and perverts Christian doctrines and at times invents new doctrines altogether. When Western Christians’ interactions with the Taiping resulted in errors of the Taipings being pointed out such as their wrongly held beliefs that God is physical, that Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is a man, we see Hong suddenly declare that the Bible is corrupted and in need of a new update. Not only is the theological subject matter concerning but the account of warfare and punishments that the Taipings impose upon their followers and those they subjugated is not easy to read. This is a blood thirsty cult that has no problem killing people in horrifying numbers and in horrifying matters, sometimes on unfounded accusations. The military defeat of the Taipings are also horrifying to read as the book document how innocent civilians suffer, and the inhumane ordeal that Taiping troops faced such as being frozen to death because of unanticipated bad weather, starvation and brutal massacres of fighting and surrendering forces. One can’t help but to draw parallel of the Taiping with ISIS.
I wished the book mentioned more of what does the legacy of the Taiping rebellion and what it means for China today. I know other scholars have picked up on exploring these themes. This book exceeded my expectation of how much I would learn as a result of reading this book. Also this book also exceeded my expectation of how much primary sources the author interacted with and cited.
...more

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Aug 28, 2018 Stephen Douglas Rowland rated it really liked it

My only complaint is that Spence has a strange way of barely mentioning things that seem extremely important and extensively elaborating on the trivial. Otherwise, this is excellent, and there are other books on the subject to fill in the gaps.

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May 29, 2012 Graham rated it liked it

A thorough investigation of the Taiping Rebellion. As historical scholarship, it's exhaustive. As a casual read for somebody, like myself, without an extensive grounding in Chinese history, it can be exhausting. As far as the former, there's little better. As far as the latter, it's hard to recommend, except for those keenly interested in some of history's more obscure currents.

I will say that I would have liked to see more of the results of the aftermath of the Taipings. It doesn't examine the ...more

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Oct 16, 2010 Zoey rated it it was ok

Shelves: for-school, could-not-finish, exotic, historical, zzzz

If you like informative books that try to compact as many details as possible between their covers, you'll probably like this book. For me this book is a chore to read. Although Dr. Spence's writing is very educational and seemingly well-researched, it makes for a dry read. The Taiping Rebellion is interesting to learn about, but my rating has nothing to do with what Dr. Spence was writing about and everything to do with how he actually wrote it.

The book is packed with facts big and small. Most ...more

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Nov 23, 2020 Nick rated it liked it

Shelves: history

I'm torn about whether to rate this as a 3 or a 4. Clearly, the author knows his stuff, but I found the book draggy to read. Wrong book at the wrong time? That's certainly possible in 2020 AD. Why read a book about something so grim during a pandemic? I was partially inspired to read this because of the QAnon phenomenon in the US, but the facts as scrupulously laid out by Spence argue against a quick and easy historical analogy. Still there is plenty here for people that are interested in Chines ...more

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Jul 02, 2018 Adrian rated it really liked it

An interesting, overlooked, and truly bizarre chapter of history. Hong Xiuquan was in many ways a Chinese Savonarola or David Koresh, but with far more devastating consequences. The story of Hong Xiuquan is a bizarre tale, brought to life by Jonathan D. Spence in lively form that is detailed, yet accessible to the layperson.
Considering the cast of characters involved, including Charles Gordon and Lord Elgin, one can only wonder why this episode is not better known in the West, but Spence has don ...more

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Oct 16, 2017 Bob Newman rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, china

Strange Sect Runs Amok in 19th Century China
When I studied World History in high school back in the '50s, we didn't study China at all. We were fully concentrated on the history of Europe and its antecedents in Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, Greece and Rome. I think things have improved a bit, but in general, if you ask the average person around here what was the biggest war of the 19th century---those who can remember any that is---they are likely to say either the American Civil War or the Napol Strange Sect Runs Amok in 19th Century China
When I studied World History in high school back in the '50s, we didn't study China at all. We were fully concentrated on the history of Europe and its antecedents in Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, Greece and Rome. I think things have improved a bit, but in general, if you ask the average person around here what was the biggest war of the 19th century---those who can remember any that is---they are likely to say either the American Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars. Nobody at all would say the Taiping Rebellion in China which took place from 1850 to 1864 and had some echoes after that too. But upwards of 30 million people died in that terrible conflagration caused by the severe conditions of the Chinese countryside, the weakness of the Manchu or Qing Dynasty, pressure from European powers, and the introduction of Christian texts and beliefs into a society with a completely different world view. Spence's amazingly talented book analyzes the rise of Hong Xiuquan, a millenarian leader who believed himself to be Jesus' younger brother and appointed by God to bring about Paradise on earth. Having failed the traditional Chinese civil service exams, he began preaching his syncretic religion among the poor of backwoods towns and villages. The story of the Taipings is of how this poor preacher became the leader of a vast rebellion that conquered most of central China and nearly took Beijing, the capital. Spence concentrates on the Chinese interpretations of various parts of the Bible that the Taipings then held sacred, trying to show what beliefs motivated the movement. He includes English translations of many of Hong Xiuquan's writings and closely weaves contacts with Western Christian missionaries and military men with the Taiping movement. Puritanical, believing in land reform and communal ownership, and dead set against the rule over China of a "foreign" (Manchu) dynasty, the Taiping armies came very close to changing the course of Chinese and world history. Interestingly written and with a very moving ending, which shows how little the West had understood what happened, the book for me had one grave setback, and one only. There is no conclusion! What did all this mean to Chinese history? How did it influence what happened afterwards? As I read, I kept thinking of parallels with the Communist revolution that took off only 72 years later, parallels of the long marches of the Taipings looking for a secure center and Mao's Long March to Yenan, parallels of the Taiping promise to divide the land equally and Communist land reform promises. There are more similarities. The fantastic religious element cannot be compared completely with the more practical Marxist doctrine, yet the people in both movements fought for an ideal, not just to follow a king. Spence says not a word. I couldn't quite figure out why and that's why I didn't give the five stars that this otherwise deserved. ...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Gene rated it really liked it

I really did enjoy this book about the Taiping Rebellion in China. Having lived in the Orient for almost 25 years and also being a Christian missionary, I found it doubly interesting and instructive. Sometimes just a little Christianity can do more harm than good if the recipient is mentally unstable, and I think it is fair to judge Hong Xiuquan to have been in just that sort of condition, with a mixture of self-serving and corruption thrown in for good measure. I also saw glimpses of what would I really did enjoy this book about the Taiping Rebellion in China. Having lived in the Orient for almost 25 years and also being a Christian missionary, I found it doubly interesting and instructive. Sometimes just a little Christianity can do more harm than good if the recipient is mentally unstable, and I think it is fair to judge Hong Xiuquan to have been in just that sort of condition, with a mixture of self-serving and corruption thrown in for good measure. I also saw glimpses of what would later be Communist excesses in the way the Taiping movement was directed. Certainly the Chinese people of the 19th and 20th Centuries were not unwilling to follow unscrupulous megalomaniacs. Things went on among the leadership and the following that are truly difficult to believe. People willingly giving up family life for the cause, people living in starvation and sickness while the leaders feasted and clothed themselves in silken luxury. You would think it couldn't survive such blatant injustices, and yet people continued to devotedly follow the movement. I would love to delve further into the psychology of such occurrences throughout history. Something about at least some of us makes us vulnerable to such treachery.

I have only a few gripes. I wish we could delve further into the thoughts of Hong Xiuquan himself, but perhaps he left too few reflections in writing to make this possible. I also felt the book spent too much attention on the activities of Westerners in China at the time of the start of Hong's movement and in it's fall. It was really peripheral (outside of the initial missionary contact with Hong) and somewhat boring. I'd like to see it more through the eyes of the common peasant in China. Also, I really would have loved the notes to include the Chinese characters for the various terms and designations that are given in transliteration or translation. That would make the book much more revealing to a reader who can also read Chinese.

Still, it is a very good book about a historical event that has fascinated me for quite some time. Well worth reading. If you live in Taitung and would like to borrow it, just let me know. ...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Ill D rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, history

Highly successful as a work of narrative and psycho-history (yes, that is a real term). However, I was hoping for a more birds eye narrative that would explain the social, economic, political, and religious forces that affected (Hong) Xiuquan, his world and how these impetuses caused this young many to wreak so much havoc on the Middle Kingdom in the late-middle 19th century. Moreover, for what is probably one of the most bloody and destructive events in not just the 19th century but world histo Highly successful as a work of narrative and psycho-history (yes, that is a real term). However, I was hoping for a more birds eye narrative that would explain the social, economic, political, and religious forces that affected (Hong) Xiuquan, his world and how these impetuses caused this young many to wreak so much havoc on the Middle Kingdom in the late-middle 19th century. Moreover, for what is probably one of the most bloody and destructive events in not just the 19th century but world history as a whole, in which at least 20 million, at its highest estimates 40 million people died; Spence seems to mistakenly overlook or more likely gloss over these facts intentionally in order to focus purely on narrative.

It succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish which is to place us within the head of Hong and elucidate his mind-state throughout this upheaval and how he integrates Christian texts, as well as Chinese culture, its own particular folklore and finally his own theological insights into a synthetic synthesis. However, for those us us looking for an empirical/thematic (more mainstream, and I mean this in the best way possible because I really do enjoy Spence's work, and I really respect his position as the best White scholar of Chinese culture, study of the Taiping Rebellion we'll have to look elsewhere. Most likely a cursory visit to our local library will suffice.

Either way, it's a fantastic read and would serve as an excellent companion to a mere study of the facts. Spence is an excellent author with a very warm writing style. Also, this work encapsulates a vast swathe of sources, indigenous Chinese as well as colonial British into a very complex narrative. Additionally, Spence is able to connect a lot of dots that no one during this time period would been aware of. He definitely deserves a high salute for being able to tie such a copious amount of sources into a tight and elucidating story.

Two thumbs up. Recommended for anyone interested in the preceding century that set the stage for the violent birth of Modern China. ...more

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Nov 29, 2013 Jonathan rated it liked it

Shelves: chinese-history, history

Hong Xiuquan failed the provincial tests on Confucian texts to get a job in the old Imperial Chinese bureaucracy four times. So, after a dream that he had ascended to heaven to meet his father God and his big brother Jesus, he set out on a new career as a messianic leader, "God's Chinese Son." Oh, and he also decided to revolt against the Quin Dynasty who ruled China back then. The result was the bloodiest event in history up until the Second World War: the Taiping Rebellion of 1845-64 in which ...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Chris Brown rated it it was amazing

Jonathan Spence is THE modern Chinese historian. No one else comes close. Here is covering one of the most interesting, bizarre uprisings in world history and the beginning of the end for the Qing Dynasty: The Taiping Rebellion. Anyone interested in history, religious leaders, China, or just excellent scholarship and writing needs to read this book.

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Apr 29, 2020 Zulu Fox rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'm a little confused as to how this book ended up coming together the way that it did. It seems like it's trying to be a few things at once: a history of the Taiping Rebellion aimed at a general readership, an exegesis of some newly-discovered writings of Hong Xiuquan (the founder of the Taiping movement), a biography of Hong Xiuquan, and an argument for the significance to Chinese millenarian sects like Taiping of the intellectual "aura" created in parts of China by Western missionaries. All o I'm a little confused as to how this book ended up coming together the way that it did. It seems like it's trying to be a few things at once: a history of the Taiping Rebellion aimed at a general readership, an exegesis of some newly-discovered writings of Hong Xiuquan (the founder of the Taiping movement), a biography of Hong Xiuquan, and an argument for the significance to Chinese millenarian sects like Taiping of the intellectual "aura" created in parts of China by Western missionaries. All of this is woven together by a meandering narrative interspersed with some extremely detailed vignettes of particular people, times and places.

For some context, Jonathan Spence is (was?) one of the biggest names in producing scholarship on Chinese history intended for a general readership. While I'm largely oblivious to the ins and outs of the publishing world, I suspect his big name - and the promise of the big sales that came attached to it - might have lead the publishers/editors to give him considerable latitude in both how he structured this project and how he executed it (For starters, the narrative could have been seriously tightened up and the length trimmed down considerably, but we'll get to that.).

In his foreward, Spence writes that he never dreamed of writing a history of the Taiping because so many authoritative works have already been published on the subject and virtually all of the relevant primary sources have been translated into English. But now some new Taiping texts have been unearthed which outline some additional heavenly visions Hong allegedly received. So, of course, this warrants a new book. In Spence's words: "This book does not attempt to give a total picture of the Taiping movement, its formation, maturation, expansion, suppression, and effects on China as a whole. Many fine scholars have written on some or all of these aspects of the story, and I am happy to build on their work rather than attempt to duplicate it. Instead I focus on the mind of Hong Xiuquan" - which is fine, but let's call a spade a spade, a general readership is not going to rush to buy a book that only dissects a few newly discovered writings by Hong Xiuquan and then meditates on how they change our understanding of the Taiping Movement (though that would certainly make for a fascinating article), so, a "total picture" of the Taiping movement is indeed what you get! It's odd, for a book supposedly "focused on the mind of Hong Xiuquan" literally entire chapters go by with nearly zero mention of him, let alone a focus on his thoughts. So, let's be clear, this is indeed a general history of the Taiping, and while much has already been written on the subject, it sure wasn't written by as marketable a name as Jonathan Spence! So the world was ready. Let's look at some pros and cons.

Pros: I really don't wan't to come off too harshly. I think Spence is a brilliant academic and a great researcher with a phenomenal grasp of both the language and the subject matter. In this book, Spence creates some wonderfully entertaining profiles of certain historical figures, and he does an awesome job of really bringing certain times and places to life with totally entertaining, readable and sometimes compelling accounts. He is also obviously good and bringing together all kinds of different sources to paint an historical picture.

Cons: In this book at least, the narrative wanders all over the place and sometimes gets weirdly bogged down in the arcane minutia of peripheral people and events. There are literally pages dedicated to the rules of decorum for how courtesans should groom Hong Xiuquan, among other things. Sometimes, rather than simply relate that "The Taiping learned X" it will be: "The Taiping learned X by way of two individuals who.." and then proceed to provide lengthy profiles of some minor characters and how they came to know whatever. Separately, for all the time spent listing the provisions of various Europeans or the exact costs of various properties, it would have been nice if a little bit more time had been spent actually outlining the socio-economic context out of which this movement arose. It would have also been nice to hear even just a little bit about some of the impacts of the Taiping on China after it was put down in 1864, but the narrative literally ends the day that Hong's son is executed.

So in sum, I really enjoyed various portions of the book, and I learned some interesting stuff about the Taiping, but I think if this book had simply been truer to itself by being an accessible general history of the Taiping, and if it had benefited from some more assertive editing, it could have been a much stronger book. ...more

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Feb 20, 2021 RS Rook rated it it was amazing

I first became aware of Jonathan Spence because his texts were often required reading in college Chinese and East Asian History courses. So for those of you feeling like this reads like a textbook, that's because it is one.

His usefulness as a textbook author lies in the fact that he generally avoids the kind of speculative musings that tend to spring up in popular history texts. Such musings are often employed to either humanize the subjects or add greater coherence and drive to the thrust of th I first became aware of Jonathan Spence because his texts were often required reading in college Chinese and East Asian History courses. So for those of you feeling like this reads like a textbook, that's because it is one.

His usefulness as a textbook author lies in the fact that he generally avoids the kind of speculative musings that tend to spring up in popular history texts. Such musings are often employed to either humanize the subjects or add greater coherence and drive to the thrust of the narrative. Spence's narrative is winding, often veers into trivial details while gliding through larger events. But this is because he is building his narrative almost exclusively on information that can be backed up by primary documentation or the research of multiple other historians, archaeologists, preservationists, etc. Since such information relies on what pieces of documentation survive and are available to researcher, it lends a certain randomness to the trajectory of the narrative.

And even though Spence is relying on these sources, it is still true that he editorializes, leaving the reader unaware of what may be left out, or where discrepancies in the historical record exist (although most such discrepancies can be found detailed in the footnotes, available for the careful reader). One could also argue that he sometimes includes trivial details that may not be necessary. For the reader that enjoys the randomness of primary sources, these additions are enjoyable but the casual reader may find they drag down the narrative. (Such diversions serve a purpose--if we can imagine this text as primarily being useful to undergrad history students, it is conceivable that the inclusion of these myriad little details can spark interest in more thorough research on their particulars. This also has the added benefit of making it more likely this work gets cited in future papers on those subjects. In this way, academia both supports and feeds on itself).

Personally, I really enjoy Spence's style of writing. The use of the present tense and stating the claims of the Taiping as fact, "Jesus speaks through Xiao Chaogui" etc. puts the reader in the moment and ideology of the Taiping themselves. As strange as it may seem, I think it shows a great deal of respect to the subject to showcase them on their own terms. It is an invitation to remember that all history is made up of competing narratives and understandings of reality, that we should both respect as well as question--including our own.

The scholarship here is solid, and this period in time is absolutely fascinating. While this book may not appeal to a casual reader, it is a great starting point for anyone interested in doing further reading on this subject and provides a lot of context which may be most helpful for those of us unfamiliar with religious Chinese history and customs. ...more

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Dec 06, 2019 Rochelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Powerful, compelling, epic describe this thoroughly engaging work of scholarship. God's Chinese Son is a look at a time of the Great Awakening in the mid 19th century, the beginnings of global markets as we know them today, and the power of religious fervor to shape events. It definitely evoked, for me, parallels with Fawn Brodie's excellent book, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, a biography about Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism at approximately the same time. God's Chin ...more

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Jan 05, 2019 Kelleen Thaxton rated it liked it

A very detailed, well-researched telling of a fascinating period in Chinese history about which I knew absolutely nothing. The interesting history and cultural insights kept me reading through many of the dry, minute-detail-heavy sections regarding numbers of bushels of rice or cartons of muskets being transported, or movements of troops back and forth in the same area for days on end. I would have enjoyed more illustrations, and definitely some maps that would clarify the troop movements and pr ...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Zeke Chase rated it it was amazing

Shelves: china

The Taiping Rebellion is considered history's deadliest uprising, a messianic Christian rebellion that left 20-30 million dead in just 14 years. Fought between 1850 and 1864 in southern China, it was led by Hong Xiuquan, a man proclaiming himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and became the most fundamentalist theocracy in human history. At it's peak, it involved everything totalitarian that “The Onion” could think of and more, including a capital ban on all sex – it was Rick Santorum's w The Taiping Rebellion is considered history's deadliest uprising, a messianic Christian rebellion that left 20-30 million dead in just 14 years. Fought between 1850 and 1864 in southern China, it was led by Hong Xiuquan, a man proclaiming himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and became the most fundamentalist theocracy in human history. At it's peak, it involved everything totalitarian that “The Onion” could think of and more, including a capital ban on all sex – it was Rick Santorum's wet dream, which, ironically enough, he'd then be beheaded for having.

I say “at it's peak” because the war can more or less be divided into two phases – the rise, correlating roughly with the with the reign of East King Yang Xiuqing (1850-1856), and the fall, correlating roughly with the reign of Shield King Hong Rengan (1858-1864). Both men in their time served as the Number 2 to Hong Xiuquan's Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Despite the rise of Loyal King Li Xuecheng as supreme military commander in the latter half of the war, the Taiping won no notable victories under Hong Rengan (that weren't lost so quickly that they were negligible) and with the rise of Qing General Zeng Goufan and the minor but significant interventions by the West, the unprecedented rise of the Taiping was quashed and the movement bloodily suppressed.

This is the second such book I've read on the subject; the first being “Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom” by Stephen R. Platt (review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), which deals very little with the Taiping theology or Hong Xiuquan himself, but instead thoroughly details the latter half of the war under Hong Rengan. Yang Xiuqing isn't even named by name in Platt's book, but instead merely referred to as “the East King” in the brief passage that mentions his attempted coup. This book, “God's Chinese Son”, deals almost exclusively with Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping theology, with brief explanations to battles along the way filled in. Some of the major players of the war – Zeng Goufan, Frederick Townsend Ward, and even Hong Rengan – receive minor attention, whereas whole chapters deal exclusively with Hong Xiuquan trying to come to terms with the infallibility of the Bible and the incest between Lot and his daughters. This book also includes a detailed history of the original five kings – East, Yang; West, Xiao Chaogui; South, Feng Yunshan; North, Wei Changhui; and Wing, Shi Dakai – including the dark details of Yang's insubordination, execution and the massacre of several thousand of his followers. Following that period, however, Hong Rengan's term is loosely skimmed over and the war comes to an abrupt end. There is little explanation as to the rise of Zeng Goufan's army, and the Western intervention is skimmed over in about half a sentence.

The insanity of the fundamentalist theocracy is plentiful, though. It details the sex segregation policy, the various “communications” between God, Jesus and Hong, Hong's debates on the incorporeality of God, the brilliantly cruel and bloody counter-coup against Yang, how local piracy and banditry helped to push and mould the Taiping, the cruelty Hong showed towards his 88 concubines (including kicking them while they were pregnant), along with snippets of some of the crueler punishments (failing to attend a prayer meeting was punishable by 100 blows with a heavy pole; one such man was sentenced to 140 blows for engaging in sex, his partner, even though likely kidnapped and raped, was sentenced to 100 blows; prostitutes were not only executed, but had their entire families executed as well).

In short, this book is very detailed, and highly informative, but it probably works best in tandem with Platt's book. Furthermore, this book (unlike Platt's) assumes a certain amount of foreknowledge on the subject. For example, if you were to pick up a book on Operation Valkyrie, it might not go into Hitler's entire biography and cover the entire European Theatre. Well, Yang's coup is to Valkyrie as Hong is to Hitler, and Spence assumes you know a little something about the Taiping before you start reading this. This is not so much a book on the Taiping Rebellion as it is on Hong Xiuquan and his theology, with snapshots of the rebellion interspersed to help frame his actions. Therefore, I would recommend reading Platt's book first, as I did, and then this one.

Some reviewers find fault with this book because the narrative is told in present tense, as though it's a novel following Hong through the years. Although it's a different way to do a history narrative, I quickly got used to it, and, given the sometimes nonlinear shifts (for example, when a character is introduced and Spence spends two pages filling in his back story, during which he reverts to past tense), the present tense helps to keeps the reader progressing with the narrative.

Two things this book could have used were a dramatis personae and an epilogue. At times, I found it hard to keep the names of some of the minor kings straight, and found myself flipping back through the chapters to refresh myself. The conclusion to the book is very abrupt, and, apart from a brief reference to the destructiveness of the Taiping in the Foreword, little is done to show the significance of the rebellion.

In the end, this book is rife with excellent history and explicit detail. It is a powerful narrative of the madman responsible for history's deadliest civil war, and the insane, puritanical, apocalyptic theology that guided him.

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Feb 19, 2018 JB rated it really liked it

I chose to read this book for a World History book review assignment. My Professor highly recommended this account, and now I do too. Spence is an amazing writer who knows how to frame large amounts of information in a digestible and engaging way. It was a slow and heavy read for me but entirely worthwhile. Now I’ve an interest in pursuing his other works.

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Aug 25, 2018 Dan Slimmon rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, china, war, biography

this book almost comes closer to biography than history. it's the story of hong xiuquan and those in his inner circle, rather than the taiping civil war itself. for the latter, check out stephen platt's autumn in the heavenly kingdom . but they're both good books. ...more

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Oct 12, 2020 William Dinneen rated it it was amazing

Great. Spence writes in a unique way that puts you right there with the Taiping troops. You follow Hong Xiuquan from his humble beginnings through to the end, remaining within his head the entire way. It was endlessly interesting to see how Hong reconciled Confucian ideas with his aberrant Christianity, and how he was able to bring about such a large movement.

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May 18, 2018 Tycho Toothaker rated it really liked it

Very good history of the Taiping Rebellion. I found it to cover a bit too extensively the particular campaigns and troop movements, but that's just because that's not what I wanted from it. Told in a very compelling way. ...more

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Jul 11, 2020 Hartley rated it really liked it

What a richly colored world that Spence has painstakingly recreated in this work. I appreciated the many different perspectives and documents pulled together to create this work, although I wish more on the Qing perspective had been included as well as an epilogue.

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Sep 30, 2020 Dennis Wong rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The book is a comprehensive research on Hong Xiuquan and the rise and fall of the Heavenly Kingdom. I am especially interested in how Hong removed and changed the contents in the Bible to suit his needs.

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Feb 10, 2012 Derek Weese rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a hard book to review as it covers a broad and complex story in a manner that I thought could have been done better and with far greater detail. The setting is China immediately following the Opium War with the British in the early 1840's (Qing Dynasty). The Chinese are, to say the least, down on their luck in this point in history. Western powers are slowly beginning to encroach upon Chinese territory and the Opium War has just proved that militarily China has about as much chance of wi This is a hard book to review as it covers a broad and complex story in a manner that I thought could have been done better and with far greater detail. The setting is China immediately following the Opium War with the British in the early 1840's (Qing Dynasty). The Chinese are, to say the least, down on their luck in this point in history. Western powers are slowly beginning to encroach upon Chinese territory and the Opium War has just proved that militarily China has about as much chance of winning a snowball fight in hell as it does in defeating a Western power in battle. The gap between rich and poor is tremendous (more of a gaping chasm than a gap really) and there is endemic drought and famine; all in all a terrible time to be Chinese.
In steps Hong Xiuquan. He is a young man of the Hakka, one of the many minority groups in China, and he is looking to take the Civil Service Exam...he fails. Having failed my fair share of exams in my lifetime I can fully understand his frustration...however, I never went so far as to have visions of God and Jesus and a holy quest to establish through force God's Kingdom on Earth. (Though there was that time in Math 110...)
At first, he seems like a likeable enough fellow, he converts to Christianity following a tract he picked up from a Western missionary, continues to have visions (which I must say become more and more egocentric, he is now, of course, the younger brother of Jesus) and sets up a society of his followers called the Taiping or eternal peace...too bad they fail to live up to that name.
Joking aside, Hong Xiuquan is a direct warning from history about giving power to madmen. As time progresses the Qing try to stamp out his movement as being un-Chinese. This, of course, leads to a HUUUGE civil war where even the lowest estimates figure around 20million people will lose their lives. Up until the Second World War that would make the Taiping Rebellion the bloodiest war in human history. Xiuquan and his followers wage a holy across southern China, smashing Qing Armies, storming cities and trying to upset the social order. Certainly there is much to admire with him, he believed in equality of the sexes, equality of the classes and land distribution. However, he was a fruitcake, which would have been funny had he not had so much power.
His movement begins to crumble when, ironically, his cultist (clearly he was not really Christian) beliefs force the separation of men and women going so far as to not allow married couples to engage in sex. How exactly was he supposed to 'be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth'...? Truth be told, overly stringent relational standards and the complete prohibition of sexual activity is generally the FIRST sign of a cult. Not to mention it brings to fruition 1 Timothy chapter 4 (my father is a pastor, he clues me in on the many, many, many theological conundrums that Xiuquan got himself involved in) which pretty much spells out C U L T. Again, dark humor aside (I am actually rather outraged by this man, hence the snideness) Hong Xiuquan leads his followers down the path of doom and being blown to hell by Western trained Qing forces. His own soldiers begin to openly revolt against him, why? The sex ban, it doesn't exactly make a man all warm and fuzzy towards his fearless leader.
By the late 1850's, from his capitol in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan's movement begins to die. Despite some spectacular battlefield success, the Qing keep coming back and even go so far as to allow Western forces to train, arm and at times lead their forces in battle. This leads to more and more Qing military success and the erosion of the Taiping armed forces while Xiuquan's quite frankly ridiculous theology erodes his own base of support from within.
In the end he and his followers don't survive. He himself will die in his early 50's before the war ends while his son is taken captive by Qing forces following the fall of Nanjing and quite brutally executed. Jesus can't seem to spare the time to lift a finger to help his younger siblings.
All in all this is far too fascinating a story to be told in a book that is barely over 300 pages. It's too complex, too big and it's so unknown in the West that it just demands to be told. Spence, who is a good writer (rare in an academic...no offense to academics, truly) can't seem to make this book work to it's full potential. By focusing the narrative on Hong Xiuquan and his ever deepening slip into madness, I think that Spence does more to muddle the story than to make it clear. Regardless with this being only one of two books that I can think of in English on the subject it is a worthy addition to anyone's historical library. It is an easy read, it's just disappointing that by following the leader of the rebellion, pretty much everything else about this epic story becomes shrouded in fog. Not Spence's intent I'm sure. But I still recommend it if for nothing else it tells a bit part of one of the most fascinating stories in history as well as showing how Christianity, if unregulated by a hierarchy and established doctrine, can slip into madness. ...more

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