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ahorbinskiBibliographic data: Spence, Jonathan D. God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996.
Main argument: The so-called Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64 in eastern and southern China was one of the largest wars of the 19thC and one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, costing in the final total at least 20 million lives. Before its bloody final defeat, however, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom promulgated a fascinating, revealed version of Christianity as well as offering a vigorous challenge to many of the gender, social, and political norms of traditional China as embodied by the ruling Qing dynasty, and arguably acted on many of the same dissatisfactions that eventually brought about that dynasty's downfall, in which the near-bankruptcy the Qing court incurred defeating the Taiping played at least some part, at a lengthy delay.
Historiographical engagement: As well as reading the secondary scholarship on the Taiping, Spence also engages with the body of primary, documentary evidence on the Taiping that remains, and in particular with the body of religious scriptures published in Nanjing during its years as the Heavenly Capital and with documents by and relating to Hong Xiuquan himself.
Critical assessment: This book reads like a living, breathing illustration of some of the points that Dipesh Chakrabarty makes about the limits of modern historiographical discourse, or more precisely, like an illustration of how a gifted historian can thoroughly circumvent them using a fairly basic set of narrative strategies--in this case, telling the narrative entirely in the present tense (what in Latin is generally referred to as the historical present). Spence is a master of narrative, and of his sources, and he brings the fascinating, strange, and marvelous (in the medieval sense) story of Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping kingdom to boggling life. It's a prodigious narrative of a little-known historical incident, and well worth the read.
My only major complaint is again, I think, how closely Spence holds the cards of his historiographical purpose to his chest--I think that he is interested primarily in Hong Xiuquan's version of Christianity and its interplay with the times and the circumstances surrounding Hong, and secondarily with the astonishingly bloody cost of that vision, and why it appealed to so many people. As Spence writes,
But this gets little explicit play in the text, and the ending is, in some sense, rather abrupt, though in others it's a foregone conclusion from page one. As vivid and masterful a storyteller as Spence is, I can't help but feel that his books would be even stronger, from an academic perspective, with a little more explicit discussion of his arguments.
Further reading: Jen Yu-wen, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement; Dian Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810
Meta notes: Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Main argument: The so-called Taiping Rebellion of 1850-64 in eastern and southern China was one of the largest wars of the 19thC and one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, costing in the final total at least 20 million lives. Before its bloody final defeat, however, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom promulgated a fascinating, revealed version of Christianity as well as offering a vigorous challenge to many of the gender, social, and political norms of traditional China as embodied by the ruling Qing dynasty, and arguably acted on many of the same dissatisfactions that eventually brought about that dynasty's downfall, in which the near-bankruptcy the Qing court incurred defeating the Taiping played at least some part, at a lengthy delay.
Historiographical engagement: As well as reading the secondary scholarship on the Taiping, Spence also engages with the body of primary, documentary evidence on the Taiping that remains, and in particular with the body of religious scriptures published in Nanjing during its years as the Heavenly Capital and with documents by and relating to Hong Xiuquan himself.
Critical assessment: This book reads like a living, breathing illustration of some of the points that Dipesh Chakrabarty makes about the limits of modern historiographical discourse, or more precisely, like an illustration of how a gifted historian can thoroughly circumvent them using a fairly basic set of narrative strategies--in this case, telling the narrative entirely in the present tense (what in Latin is generally referred to as the historical present). Spence is a master of narrative, and of his sources, and he brings the fascinating, strange, and marvelous (in the medieval sense) story of Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping kingdom to boggling life. It's a prodigious narrative of a little-known historical incident, and well worth the read.
My only major complaint is again, I think, how closely Spence holds the cards of his historiographical purpose to his chest--I think that he is interested primarily in Hong Xiuquan's version of Christianity and its interplay with the times and the circumstances surrounding Hong, and secondarily with the astonishingly bloody cost of that vision, and why it appealed to so many people. As Spence writes,
As the epigraph to this book suggests, in the words of Keats, which themselves build on those of the Book of Revelation, Hong was one of those people who believe it is their mission to make all things "new, for the surprise of the sky-children." It is a central agony of history that those who embark on such missions so rarely care to calculate the cost. (xxvii)
But this gets little explicit play in the text, and the ending is, in some sense, rather abrupt, though in others it's a foregone conclusion from page one. As vivid and masterful a storyteller as Spence is, I can't help but feel that his books would be even stronger, from an academic perspective, with a little more explicit discussion of his arguments.
Further reading: Jen Yu-wen, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement; Dian Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810
Meta notes: Truth really is stranger than fiction.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-18 15:14 (UTC)---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-19 05:42 (UTC)It works brilliantly here, though, because Spence can discuss the divine revelations and visitations and visions that the Taiping experienced fairly frequently without being forced by syntax to pass judgment on them.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-19 14:27 (UTC)(BTW, I just realized that there's a recent big-budget movie, The Warlords, set during the Taiping Rebellion. Which events I know remarkably little about.)
---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-19 22:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-19 22:54 (UTC)---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-20 02:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-20 03:56 (UTC)---L.