Rating: 
Summary: unsatisfying, but not a failure
Review: With this book, Jonathan Spence has brought us another accessible look into Chinese history - this time the revolutionary Taiping movement of the mid-1800s, which nearly overturned the entire Chinese ruling order and set in motion changes that would ultimately cause the dynasty to fall.What I was expecting with this book was a popular overview of the Taiping movement, written with Spence's usual eye for interesting detail. In some ways this is what the reader gets: a narrative packed with contextual information on popular religion, reconstructions of what it was like to live through the rebellion, and descriptions of the involvement of Westerners. Yet there are major gaps in the story too: the perspective of the Qing dynasty and how it was able to turn back the Taiping threat, the successes and failures of the Taiping social and economic program, and the rebellion's impact on culture and politics in China are all nearly completely absent from the story. Ultimately the lack of attention to these issues left me dissatisfied with the book, even if Spence warns the reader from the beginning that he is not writing comprehensively. But even his stated focus, "the mind of [Taiping leader] Hong Xiuquan", can't explain his excessive attention to Westerners. Though the transmission of Christianity is obviously a key factor, it's hard to understand the need, for example, to devote an entire paragraph to the names and characteristics of European pet dogs who had been killed by starving Chinese refugees. One suspects that Spence is trying to give his readers a familiar anchor in an alien world; unfortunately, this merely distracts from more central issues while reinforcing our eurocentric cultural biases. Spence's decision to forego analysis and evaluation in favor of straightforward narrative was also disappointing since the Taiping rebellion offers such fertile ground for interpretive work. But in spite of my complaints, reading this book was hardly a waste of time. Spence has given us a window into a movement virtually unknown in the West, but which was centrally important to late imperial Chinese history.
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