Stephen Platt's 2012 narrative history of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) — the Christian millenarian civil war that killed approximately 20 million people and nearly destroyed the Qing dynasty — told through the perspectives of both Chinese and Western participants.
Provides the definitive accessible account of the largest civil war in history — the Taiping Rebellion's combination of Christian apocalypticism (Hong Xiuquan as younger brother of Jesus), massive military mobilization, and Western intervention created the 19th century's bloodiest conflict, and Platt makes it both comprehensible and dramatic.
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