Download or read book God s Chinese Son The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan written by Jonathan D. Spence and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996-12-17 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A magnificent tapestry . . . a story that reaches beyond China into our world and time: a story of faith, hope, passion, and a fatal grandiosity."--Washington Post Book World 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.
Download or read book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom written by Stephen R. Platt and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping account of China's nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles--a sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China. The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus: after years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Stephen R. Platt recounts these events in spellbinding detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China's future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China's modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure. This is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of the movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China on an entirely different path into the modern world.
Download or read book The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom written by Thomas H. Reilly and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Occupying much of imperial China’s Yangzi River heartland and costing more than twenty million lives, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) was no ordinary peasant revolt. What most distinguished this dramatic upheaval from earlier rebellions were the spiritual beliefs of the rebels. The core of the Taiping faith focused on the belief that Shangdi, the high God of classical China, had chosen the Taiping leader, Hong Xiuquan, to establish his Heavenly Kingdom on Earth. How were the Taiping rebels, professing this new creed, able to mount their rebellion and recruit multitudes of followers in their sweep through the empire? Thomas Reilly argues that the Taiping faith, although kindled by Protestant sources, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion whose conception of its sovereign deity challenged the legitimacy of the Chinese empire. The Taiping rebels denounced the divine pretensions of the imperial title and the sacred character of the imperial office as blasphemous usurpations of Shangdi’s title and position. In place of the imperial institution, the rebels called for restoration of the classical system of kingship. Previous rebellions had declared their contemporary dynasties corrupt and therefore in need of revival; the Taiping, by contrast, branded the entire imperial order blasphemous and in need of replacement. In this study, Reilly emphasizes the Christian elements of the Taiping faith, showing how Protestant missionaries built on earlier Catholic efforts to translate Christianity into a Chinese idiom. Prior studies of the rebellion have failed to appreciate how Hong Xiuquan’s interpretation of Christianity connected the Taiping faith to an imperial Chinese cultural and religious context. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom shows how the Bible--in particular, a Chinese translation of the Old Testament--profoundly influenced Hong and his followers, leading them to understand the first three of the Ten Commandments as an indictment of the imperial order. The rebels thus sought to destroy imperial culture along with its institutions and Confucian underpinnings, all of which they regarded as blasphemous. Strongly iconoclastic, the Taiping followers smashed religious statues and imperially approved icons throughout the lands they conquered. By such actions the Taiping Rebellion transformed--at least for its followers but to some extent for all Chinese--how Chinese people thought about religion, the imperial title and office, and the entire traditional imperial and Confucian order. This book makes a major contribution to the study of the Taiping Rebellion and to our understanding of the ideology of both the rebels and the traditional imperial order they opposed. It will appeal to scholars in the fields of Chinese history, religion, and culture and of Christian theology and church history.
Download or read book Gods Chinese Son written by Jonathan D Spence and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful account of the largest uprising in human history--the Taiping rebellion (1845-64)--in which 20 million Chinese were left dead, God's Chinese Son tells "a story that reaches beyond China into our world and time; a story of faith, hope, passion, and a fatal grandiosity" (Washington Post Book World). Photos. Author lectures & tour.
Download or read book Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom written by Katherine Paterson and published by Groundwood Books Ltd. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mei Lin, a woman warrior, and pigboy Wang Lee find love, intrigue, adventure, and danger as rebels seeking to overthrow the Chinese emperor during the 1850s amid the Taiping Rebellion.
Download or read book Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom written by Stephen R. Platt and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping account of China’s nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles—a sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China. The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus: after years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Stephen R. Platt recounts these events in spellbinding detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China’s future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China’s modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure. This is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of the movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China on an entirely different path into the modern world.
Download or read book Tienkuo the Heavenly Kingdom written by Li Bo and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2001-09-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was the year 1858 and three young “run-aways” Jason Brandt, son of a Hong Kong missionary, his friend Wu Sek-chong and the beautiful and defiant Black Jade set off to find the capital of the rebel Taiping Tienkuo, The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Established in 1851 by a failed civil service candidate who claimed to be the little brother of Christ, the semi-Christian Taiping Kingdom, had made a dramatic and bloody bid to overthrow the Confucian rule of the Ch’ing Dynasty. The three young people’s search for the Heavenly Kingdom and what they eventually found among the Taipings is the central plot of this historical novel of journey and self-discovery in 19th century China.
Download or read book What Remains written by Tobie Meyer-Fong and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-27 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Taiping Rebellion was one of the costliest civil wars in human history. Many millions of people lost their lives. Yet while the Rebellion has been intensely studied by scholars in China and elsewhere, we still know little of how individuals coped with these cataclysmic events. Drawing upon a rich array of primary sources, What Remains explores the issues that preoccupied Chinese and Western survivors. Individuals, families, and communities grappled with fundamental questions of loyalty and loss as they struggled to rebuild shattered cities, bury the dead, and make sense of the horrors that they had witnessed. Driven by compelling accounts of raw emotion and deep injury, What Remains opens a window to a world described by survivors themselves. This book transforms our understanding of China's 19th century and recontextualizes suffering and loss in China during the 20th century.
Download or read book Taiping Theology written by Carl S. Kilcourse and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-26 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the theological worldview of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), a Chinese revolutionary movement whose leader, Hong Xiuquan (1814–64), claimed to be the second son of God and younger brother of Jesus. Despite the profound impact of Christian books on Hong’s religious thinking, previous scholarship has neglected the localized form of Christianity that he and his closest followers created. Filling that gap in the existing literature, this book analyzes the localization of Christianity in the theology, ethics, and ritual practices of the Taipings. Carl S. Kilcourse not only reveals how Confucianism and popular religion acted as instruments of localization, but also suggests that several key aspects of the Taipings’ localized religion were inspired by terms and themes from translated Christian texts. Emphasizing this link between vernacularization and localization, Kilcourse demonstrates both the religious identity of the Taipings and their wider significance in the history of world Christianity.
Download or read book Historiography of the Taiping Rebellion written by Ssu-yü Teng and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1962-06-30 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) was a pivotal event in modern Chinese history.This civil war was fought between the established Manchu Qing dynasty in power and the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace.
Download or read book Taiping Rebellion written by Hourly History and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the remarkable history of the Taiping Rebellion...In 1837, Hong Xiuquan failed the notoriously difficult exam to gain entry to the Chinese Civil Service and suffered a nervous breakdown. In a weakened state, he had visions which he later interpreted to be messages from God, telling him that he is the younger brother of Jesus Christ and, therefore, the second son of God. By 1850, Hong had built an army, challenged an empire, and plunged China into the bloodiest civil war in human history, one that lasted fourteen years and cost more lives than the First World War. This is the story of Hong Xiuquan's Taiping Rebellion, of his "Heavenly Kingdom," and the death and destruction that came with it. Discover a plethora of topics such as The Visions of Hong Xiuquan Fighting the Xiang Army Coups within the Taiping Kingdom The Reforms of the Shield King The Ever-Victorious Army The End of the Taiping Rebellion: Death by a Thousand Cuts And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Taiping Rebellion, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!
Download or read book Imperial Twilight written by Stephen R. Platt and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War. As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to “open” China even as China’s imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country’s decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China’s advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable—and mostly peaceful—meeting of civilizations that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history. Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American characters, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today’s uncertain and ever-changing political climate.
Download or read book Asian Millenarianism written by Hong Beom Rhee and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking book reexamines the Taiping and the Tonghak movements in 19th-century Asia. Providing an understanding of the movements as an expression, in part, of deeply rooted Asian spiritual ideas, the work also offers historical and philosophical reflections on what studies of Asian millenarianism can contribute to the comparative study of millenarianism.
Download or read book The History of the Taiping Revolution written by Augustus F. Lindley and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-12-10 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. It was led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having claimed to have received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history Augustus Frederick Lindley (Lin-Le to his Taiping soldiers) was a Royal Navy officer who, along with his wife Mary, joined the 1860 Taiping reform movement in China. He trained Taiping soldiers using modern techniques, and Mary became a sniper. In 1863, Lindley returned to the UK. In 1866 he wrote and published this book (Ti Ping Tien Kwoh: OR The History of the Taiping Revolution, including a narrative of the author's personal adventures).
Download or read book Treason By The Book written by Jonathan Spence and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1728 a stranger handed a letter to Governor Yue calling on him to lead a rebellion against the Manchu rulers of China. Feigning agreement, he learnt the details of the plot and immediately informed the Emperor, Yongzheng. The ringleaders were captured with ease, forced to recant and, to the confusion and outrage of the public, spared. Drawing on an enormous wealth of documentary evidence - over a hundred and fifty secret documents between the Emperor and his agents are stored in Chinese archives - Jonathan Spence has recreated this revolt of the scholars in fascinating and chilling detail. It is a story of unwordly dreams of a better world and the facts of bureaucratic power, of the mind of an Emperor and of the uses of his mercy.
Download or read book The Search for Modern China written by Jonathan D. Spence and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.
Download or read book The Taiping Rebellion written by Shunshin Chin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-24 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of Japan' most popular modern authors, this is a lively, readable, and immensely entertaining fictional portrayal of one of the epochal events of the nineteenth century.
