Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
History’s bloodiest civil war ended in 1864—in China. The cataclysmic Taiping rebellion is given a splendid account by UMass-Amherst historian Platt (Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China). In 1837 a peasant named Hong Xiuquan announced that he was Jesus’ younger brother, sent to rid China of “devils” including its weak, corrupt, ethnically foreign Manchu rulers. His charisma attracted a vast following that by the 1850s had conquered a large area, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with a capital at Nanjing. Despite the oddball theology, many Christian missionaries from England and elsewhere enthusiastically supported the Taipings, but could not win over their governments, who were preoccupied with pugnacious efforts to extract trading concessions from the enfeebled central government. Crushed with immense bloodshed, the rebellion left the Manchu dynasty even weaker, although it limped on for 50 more years. An upheaval that led to the deaths of 20 million, dwarfing the simultaneously fought American Civil War, deserves to be better known, and Platt accomplishes this with a superb history of a 19th-century China faced with internal disorder and predatory Western intrusions. 16 pages of photos; 5 maps. Agent: Brettne Bloom. (Feb.)
Library Journal
By the 1850s, China's Qing dynasty had held power for over 200 years, with peasants more and more having to endure privation, starvation, and disease. Ordinary Chinese believed the Qing, who were ethnic Manchu, were ineffective against "foreign devils" and in the Opium Wars with Britain. Enter Hong Xiuquan, failed civil servant and a convert to Christianity who believed he was Jesus's brother. He set off the immense and brutal civil war known as the Taiping Rebellion and established the breakaway state of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Platt (history, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst), as his subtitle shows, prefers to call it a civil war, the most devastating in history, with over 20 million killed, with brutality on both sides. The rebels, the majority ethnic Han, had strength in their great discipline and fanaticism. They would take a city, then move to the countryside enlisting farmers to join the battle against ruling forces. The Qing ultimately crushed the rebellion with help from trading partners in the West. VERDICT Platt's study of this era will be challenging for general audiences, but specialists and those seeking a serious study of the topic will appreciate it.—Susan G. Baird, formerly with Oak Lawn P.L., IL
More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
During years that overlapped the American Civil War, the Chinese were engaged in their own self-destructive conflict (1851–1864), which eventually claimed more than 20 million lives. Platt (Chinese History/Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China, 2007) maintains a generally descriptive, analytical, dispassionate voice, despite the savagery, arrogance and absolute mercenary and/or egotistical motives of the principal players. The author begins in 1853 with a quick description of the Qing dynasty, then in its second century of sway. Rising in opposition was the so-called Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whose sub-monarchs went by names like Brave King and Loyal King. Weaving their way into the fabric were various Western Christian missionaries hoping to covert the masses, aligning themselves with the rebels, who were infused with a sort of hybrid Christianity. The French and British nervously observed, concerned about protecting their trade channels, sometimes venturing into battle, supplying arms, ships and leadership. Although there were too few of them in country to occupy territory, Platt shows that the armaments and early support were important factors in the eventual defeat of the initially dominant Taiping. By 1861, of course, the Americans were engaged in their own civil war; the North feared the British would side with the Confederacy and were relieved when they opted for China instead. Platt tells all of these stories in a seamless narrative, moving gracefully from one point of view to the next, relating strategies, presenting personalities and illuminating political complexities. In general, he allows the horrors of war--mass executions, rapes, starvation, cannibalism, cholera and overall depravity--to speak for themselves. The author raises a curtain to show us events largely unknown in the West--yet achingly familiar as well.
Gordon G. Chang
Platt's fine work is not a comprehensive history. Instead, it is, as he writes, an attempt to relay what it was like to live through the tumultuous events. He does this by concentrating on a handful of central figures, especially the Shield King, Hong Rengan, and the commander of the Qing dynasty's armies, Zeng Guofan, a Confucian scholar turned general…The emphasis on individuals permits Platt to give us an engaging narrative, which begins with Hong Rengan's perilous escape to Hong Kong in 1852, but he has written more than just a history of personalities. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom hints at broad themes, putting the Taiping upheaval in the context of events outside the sprawling Qing empire.
—The New York Times Book Review
John Pomfret
[Platt] has written the next great history of the Taiping rebels. And his argument—which is fresh and important—is that this idea that China was unchangeable and not a significant factor in the world's history in the 19th century is just plain wrong. Aided by the patently clear fact that China matters now, Platt has marshaled a powerful case that the rebellion—and China—mattered then.
—The Washington Post

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780307271730
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 2/7/2012
  • Pages: 512
  • Sales rank: 61,377
  • Product dimensions: 6.68 (w) x 9.72 (h) x 1.56 (d)

Meet the Author

Stephen R. Platt received his Ph.D. in Chinese history from Yale University, where his dissertation was awarded the Theron Rockwell Field Prize. He is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is also the author of Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China. An undergraduate English major, he spent two years after college as a teacher in the Yale-China program in Hunan province. His research has been supported by the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation. He lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.

Table of Contents

Dramatis Personae xi

Chronology of Major Events xv

Preface xxiii

A Note on Romanization xxix

Maps xxx

Prologue Heaven's Children 3

Part 1 Twilight

1 The Preacher's Assistant 7

2 Neutrality 25

3 The Shield King 50

4 Soundings 69

5 An Appointment in the North 86

Part 2 Order Rising

6 A Reluctant General 113

7 The Force of Doctrine 140

8 The Perils of Civilization 164

9 Endurance 190

10 Heaven and Earth 216

11 Crossings 231

Part 3 The Great Peace

12 The Point of No Return 251

13 Vampires 280

14 Flowering Rain 304

15 Blood and Honor 314

16 Crossing the Mountain 337

Epilogue 355

Acknowledgments 367

Notes 371

Selected Bibliography 433

Index 449

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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review

  • Posted April 20, 2012

    more from this reviewer

    An excellent book. A little thin- as the author acknowledges- on

    An excellent book. A little thin- as the author acknowledges- on the origins of the Taiping revolt but well written and hard to put down. Highly recommended for anyone interested in 19th century China. Particularly good on English diplomacy and duplicity and the effect they had on the conflict. Civil war resulting from the Taiping revolt dwarfed the American Civil War in scope and destruction and this book should fill a void for people who aren't familiar with it.

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