This is an excellent and very interesting book about a period of time that is not well known and to the extent that it is known it is not well understood in the West. We’d love your help. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Normally when I listen to books on tape, it is in order to have some background noise while I'm doing something else. This war, which took place partially at the same time as the American Civil War, is considered to be the most deadly civil war in history, and yet I only heard of it by chance when I was looking for something else in the library catalog. This golden age would be short-lived. I really didn't know anything about the topic prior to beginning the text, and after finishing it, I feel that I know a great deal. He makes a strong case that the Taiping were close to toppling the Qing Dynasty and that the western powers' sporadic interventions favoring the Qing may have made a critical difference. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published This Chinese civil war took place at the exact time of the American civil war but was far more brutal- with casualties 100x worse than its American counterpart. Britain remained narrowly neutral in the latter conflict, he argues, by intervening in China and making up its trade deficit there. I visited in 2006 and was bewildered by the museum's focus on military formations. We are deeply grateful to all who contribute to this movement. The author manages to give an extensive overview of the entire period, from the founding of the pseudo-Christian sect that started the war to the bloody and almost anti-climatic end. Stephen Platt seems to be firmly planted in this glorious tradition. Also manages to avoid the Euro centrism that pops up a lot whenever the Taiping Rebellion gets talked about - Frederick Ward's and "Chinese" Gordon's mercenary Ever Victorious Army is examined but it's clearly a sideshow (a pathetic and ineffective one, to boot) to Hong Rengan's politicking or Zeng Guofan's campaigning, while the meddling by European (chiefly British) diplomats and militaries are exploitive and hypocritical (or just made with a complete lack of understanding to the situation). A good read! I read this after enjoying the author's most recent book, Imperial Twilight, which covers an earlier historical period. On the one hand, it focuses on Hong Rengan, the Taiping "Shield King" and right hand man of the Heavenly Brother, who was instrumental in the Taiping's near victory in its foreign relations with Western nations. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. It's an inherently dramatic story that is almost unknown here in America (I took a few East Asian history classes in college and I only know the basic narrative), and AUTUMN IN THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM is Stephen R. Platt's attempt to create a clear, compelling popular history of the conflict for American readers. In Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (2012), historian Stephen Platt retells the story of the rebellion and Western involvement in the conflict. Scholarly, readable account of Taiping rebellion! Stephen Platt, in Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, creates an almost stunning narrative of the Taiping Rebellion and its attending intricacies. The account in this book is simply fascinating! Most westerners are barely aware of a civil war that raged in China at the same time as the American conflagration. The Communist Party has long taken the uprising as an honored utopian precursor, while reformers dwelled on the missed opportunity to modernize a declining empire. The Taiping Rebellion was the bloodiest civil war in the history of China, and quite possibly the most destructive war in the whole sanguine history of war, yet few outside of China know very much about the course of this titanic conflict, or even that it happened at all. Coming into this book, I knew little about the Taiping Rebellion (the author makes the case for calling it the Taiping Civil War), and I had a basic understanding of British-Chinese relations in the 19th century a la Opium Wars and treaty ports.