The Night Circus - ANTHEA

38
February 2012
Knopf
Rights available
STEPHEN R. PLATT received
his PhD in Chinese history at
Yale. He is also the author
of Provincial Patriots: The
Hunanese and Modern China.
His work has been supported
by the Fulbright program, the
National Endowment for the
Humanities, and the Chiang
Chin-Kuo Foundation.
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom
China, the West, and the Epic Story of the
Taiping Civil War
Stephen R. Platt
“A splendid example of finely calibrated historical narrative.
It is a tragic and powerful story. Brilliant and enlightening.”
—Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom is a spirited narrative history
that recounts the crucial and bloody culmination of
the Taiping rebellion, a conflict that cost some 20 million
lives. With unforgettable yet enigmatic characters like Hong
Xiuquan—the spiritual leader of the Taiping who had a dream
that announced he was the son of God and the brother of
Jesus—Platt’s book shows us up-close the brutal conclusion
to China’s failed revolution.
Before 1860, both Britain and the U.S. regarded the Qing as
hide-bound and uncooperative. British newspaper reporters
sent home widely circulated accounts that demonized the
Qing in the popular imagination and allied the people to
the quasi-Christian Taiping. But just a couple of years later
both countries threw their support behind the Qing out of
concern for the stability in the region. As the revolution wore
on, Taiping leader Hong Regnan’s descent into violence and
madness further distanced would-be allies. Finally, in one
last bloody battle, some 100,000 Taiping were slaughtered
at Nanjing in the autumn of 1864, effectively snuffing out all
opposition to Qing rule for years to come.
By the time the depleted Qing fell in 1911, China had dropped
irremediably behind the West. In this enthralling history, Platt
charts the rise and fall of the movement that once promised
to launch China into the modern world.