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    Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
    Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
    Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
    Audiobook17 hours

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

    Written by Stephen R. Platt

    Narrated by Angela Lin

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Stephen R. Platt is widely respected for his incisive nonfiction, particularly in regard to his knowledge and understanding of China. With Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Platt details the absorbing narrative of the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in the loss of 20 million lives. Occurring in the 1850s, this is the story of a cultural movement characterized by intriguing personages such as influential military strategist Zeng Guofan and brilliant Taiping leader Hong Rengan.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 16, 2012
    ISBN9781464029035
    Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War

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    Reviews for Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom

    4/5

    48 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A wonderful and amazing history that blends together the East and West in the chaos of the Taiping rebellion and second Opium War. However the best part is how the author tells the story through a series of key protagonists, like Hong Rengan (cousin and prime minister of the rebellion's messianic leader), Zeng Guofan ( The Confucian scholar conscripted to rebuild the empire's military against his own wishes) and of course the two sons of the infamous Parthenon looter, Lord Elgin, who cause chaos and destruction wherever they go. Perhaps I'm buying into the propaganda of Hong Rengan, ultimately one take away I have is that the Taiping Rebellion is the greatest missed Christian missionary opportunity in all of human history and the visions of Hong Xiquan are perhaps second only to the dream of Constantine as the most potentially transformative moment in history.

    • 5/5
      One of the three great Chinese history audiobooks I’ve been able to find, with the others being On China by Henry Kissinger and Imperial Twilight, also by Stephen R. Platt. If anyone knows of others please let me know!
    • 4/5
      A well written history of the Chinese Civil War/Taiping Rebellion. An interesting read with a concentration on the foreign powers (Britian primarily) and the impact of their actions on the war.
    • 4/5
      While this book does an excellent job narrating the political events of the Taiping Rebellion, it treats the Taiping movement itself as an "other" around which swirl the machinations of Qing Mandarins and British imperialists. Far too often, I found myself impatient reading about European and American hypocrisy, wishing I could get a sense of what motivated the rebels and how they became such a powerful force.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book.A history book that reads like a novel. Describes an area of Chinese history that though known about is rarely placed in its world context.
    • 4/5
      The Taiping Rebellion (or war as Platt describes it, with good reason) was one of the most destructive conflicts in China and indeed the world. The Qing government faced a popular heterodox Christian revolt that spread across several provinces, and was only substantially solved after foreign involvement.

      Platt's book details the history of the war, its principle figures, and the differing responses the world had to it, ranging from initial support to condemnation as crossed wires and miscommunication shifted global opinion against the Taiping.

      Extremely well-researched and well written, this book is a fascinating insight into a key part of China's early modern history, the impact of which is still present in Chinese society today.
    • 4/5
      This is an excellent narrative history of a war which has the contradiction of being the second-bloodiest war in history (some 20 MILLION dead), and yet being almost wholly forgotten to Western audiences. The Chinese remember it, though. THeir history tells stories of the Yangtse overflowing and choked with the swollen corpses of the dead.

      In narrative history style, Platt focuses on several of the major characters - a Confucian scholar-general who is the Qing Empire's last hope, British diplomats and mercenaries, American observers and missionaries, and the Shield-King, cousin to the Taiping ruler himself, who had visions of Christianity and modernizing China, at the point of a sword and God's blessing.

      Although the Western nomenclature has this as a 'Rebellion', Platt characterizes this conflict as a Civil War - contemporary with the American one about to boil over. He posits that the two sides were so evenly matched that it was foreign intervention which tipped the balance to the Qing. They did so primarily for trade reasons, despite the fevered diplomacy of the Taiping, and the appeal to 'their fellow Christians'.

      It is unknown what might have happened of the 'Younger Brother of Jesus Christ' took over China, and the Qing fell then instead of hanging on until 1911. If his plans of forced modernization had gone through some years earlier than planned, who knows what the course of Asian history would be instead. China is a colossus with feet of clay, and even now, her destiny is uncertain.
    • 4/5
      The 'Taiping Rebellion' (1850-64) was the largest Civil War in human history and the deadliest conflict of the 19th century. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom focuses on events through the eyes of individual characters in an attempt at narrative history of this massive conflict. The first third is fantastic, I was totally hooked and drawn into an exotic world. Later parts become a long Gibbon-style series of contingent battles and people with hard to remember names that blend together and bog the narrative. But it gives a good sense of the course of the war, it was complicated and brutal, political machinations and atrocities happen frequently, there were many epic events. Platt makes the case that British intervention backed the wrong side - thus messing up the natural order of Chinese rebellion that frequently replaced aging dynasties - resulting in even worse bloodshed in the 20th century. I think this is a great introduction to the Taiping Rebellion with a global perspective. It received an unfair negative review in the NYT, the complaints are somewhat true but overblown.