Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, The West and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
Jul 2012 · Atlantic Books Ltd
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About this ebook
In the early 1850s, during the waning years of the Qing dynasty, word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces. The leader of the this movement - who called themselves the Taiping - was Hong Xiuquan, a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and the brother of Jesus Christ. As the revolt grew and battles raged across the empire, all signs pointed to a Taiping victory and to the inauguration of a modern, industrialized and pro-Western china.
Soon, however, Britain and the United States threw their support behind the Qing, soon quashing the Taiping and rendering ineffective the years of bloodshed the revolution had endured. In Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Stephen Platt recounts the events of the rebellion and its suppression in spellbinding detail. It is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of a movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China into the modern world.
Soon, however, Britain and the United States threw their support behind the Qing, soon quashing the Taiping and rendering ineffective the years of bloodshed the revolution had endured. In Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Stephen Platt recounts the events of the rebellion and its suppression in spellbinding detail. It is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of a movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China into the modern world.
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feistyfawn
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August 1, 2014
Good insight into how government foreign policy experts may or may not know what the end results of their actions may be. Makes you wonder what effect great powers policies are having 50 to 100 years later... Are they just disrupting the natural order of things?
About the author
Stephen R. Platt received his PhD in Chinese history at Yale and teaches Chinese history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His work has been supported by the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.
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