Heavenly Hong

Jonathan Spence's latest offering is not a history of China's Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864 and its eventual suppression by the ailing Qing or Manchu dynasty, since these have already been written. Rather, it is an attempt to get inside the mind of Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Heavenly Army of God-worshippers that, from its original base in Guangxi province, came to control much of southeastern China, including the sometime capital city of Nanjing, before falling prey to internal division and betrayal and delusions of holy invulnerability.

Spence's particular literary gifts make him ideal for this task, which is not to cast aspersions on his abilities as a straight historian, but merely to observe that he excels in the bringing to life of such characters, creating a vivid impression of a living human being while always being careful not to take liberties with his sources.

The author has made use of some newly discovered sources that shed light on Hong's theological ideas and development, as well as containing much incidental detail on the doings of other Taiping leaders, and insights into life in rural China in the mid-19th century. As ever with Spence, the book is accessible to the general reader, but it will also repay more specialist attention; for a story so familiar, at least in its broad outlines, to be made to seem fresh and original is itself a mark of the author's achievement.

The book's use of the present tense is initially disconcerting, even irritating, but the point of this device, as soon becomes clear, is that it allows Spence to address the reader in ways that would not otherwise be possible. Reading God's Chinese Son is less like reading a conventional history book than it is like attending an especially successful tutorial by the author. The present-tense narrative provides a short-cut to vivid and richly detailed evocations of time and place, unhindered by the distancing and formality of conventional academic discourse.

The book abounds in well-chosen detail on everything from traditional Chinese religious practices, to military strategy and tactics, to the climate of southeastern China, which all come together in a convincing and densely textured whole.

In the early chapters, for example, fragments of memoirs, company records, contemporary press accounts and correspondence are brought together to create an almost filmic impression of the sights and sounds of life around the Canton hongs of the 1830s. This of course was also done by Timothy Mo in his An Insular Possession (1986), but here there is greater scholarly depth to the portrayal. The uneasy coexistence of the foreign hongs and the walled Chinese city beyond, for example, is summed up in the following unforgettable little vignette. "One June evening in 1835, at the entrance to a side-street leading to the more affluent Chinese suburbs, a dead baby lies in a basket among the rubbish, its body doubled up and its head, slightly swollen, dangling over the basket's edge. So narrow is the way, at this spot, that a Westerner, returning from a stroll in the countryside, has to step over the basket, noticing the contents only when his foot is in midair.

As he stares in shock and bewilderment at the baby's face, a group of Chinese bystanders gaze, in equal bewilderment, at him." And from now on, whenever I come across a reference to the Taiping armies, I will picture them, as Spence does, "tramping deeper into the mountains, sliding through the rain and mud towards their still unidentified promised land".

So this is a memorable and often beautiful piece of writing, wearing its erudition lightly, and effortlessly educational to boot. The fourth chapter, "Sky wars", stands out in particular for its masterly introduction of the religious life of Hong Xiuquan's local area and its account of the crucial dream that convinced him of his status as the Son of Heaven in the period of great peace (Taiping). Throughout, the author achieves clarity in both theological and historical exposition.

As Hong reads the words of Isaiah (in a Chinese translation), through Spence's descriptions we see how the Canton of the opium wars matches in Hong's mind the biblical account of cities laid waste and enemies throughout the land. There is a sense of things falling into place, as there must have been for Hong, but never in a heavy-handed or over-obvious way. Skilfully and intelligently interwoven into these early chapters is a broader portrait of the China of the first opium war, an important factor in understanding the eventual popular appeal of the Taiping movement.

Spence reminds us how the conflict gave rise to resentment at "Chinese traitors to their race" who appeased the foreigners, and records the pre-emptive strikes of the Manchus at Chinese "traitors" whenever British troops were rumoured to be approaching. Here the arresting image is of British soldiers seeing Chinese citizens fleeing from their Manchu military "protectors", and finding the streets full of Chinese dead when they entered a town.

One significant achievement of this book is the author's success in taking the reader right into the documents; it is a history of texts as much as anything else. Spence invites us to share in his evident enjoyment of his sources, whether they are earnest and unintentionally humorous 1830s missionary diaries and reports, or Taiping writings in which the underlying, devious political purpose of the authors shines through the apparently theological nature of the document. His tone, however, is gently mocking, not sneering; it is the voice of the historian taking pleasure in connecting with one of his subjects, experiencing a genuine insight into the mind of another person from a bygone age.

Throughout this book, it is the accumulation of small insights that can make this utterly foreign world come into focus and make sense, even to a late-20th-century student who has never set eyes on China. It was after reading one of Spence's earlier works, The Gate of Heavenly Peace (1982) that I decided to embark on a first degree in Chinese studies. With that book, he drew in a reader with no prior knowledge of things Chinese and painted such a complete and subtle picture of the intellectual and political world of 20th-century China that I not only felt I understood the people and the times, but also came to care about the questions he raised.

Like all the best historians, Spence's work has a resonance that goes beyond the specific topics on which he writes, dealing instead with universal human debates and dilemmas. Hong Xiuquan's career may be a familiar story to many potential readers, but this is a haunting and subtle version of it that never makes the mistake of saying too much.

Jackie Sheehan is lecturer in international history, Keele University.