Jonathan D. Spence – författare

“A milestone in Western studies of China.” (John K. Fairbank) In this masterful, highly original approach to modern Chinese history, Jonathan D. Spence shows us the Chinese revolution through the eyes of its most articulate participants—the writers, historians, philosophers, and insurrectionists who shaped and were shaped by the turbulent events of the twentieth century. By skillfully combining literary materials with more conventional sources of political and social history, Spence provides an unparalleled look at China and her people and offers valuable insight into the continuing conflict between the implacable power of the state and the strivings of China's artists, writers, and thinkers.

The collapse of the Ming dynasty and the takeover of China by Manchu rulers in the 1640s were of crucial importance in the late history of China.  But because traditional Chinese sources arbitrarily divide the century at the change of dynasty in 1644, it has been difficult to form a clear picture of the transition.  The nine essays in this book will contribute significantly toward understanding the complexity of change and continuity over the span of time leading up to and resulting from the tumult of the mid-1600s.“The fullest introduction in English to the Ming-Ch’ing transition.”—Tom Fisher, Pacific Affairs“No other recent work compares with its scope, and no older work can stand up to the introduction of its new materials and perspectives.”—Library Journal“[This book] makes a valuable contribution to Ming-Ch’ing studies and should be required reading for anyone interested in the two dynasties.”—James B. Parsons, American Historical Review

In this highly praised book, Jonathan D. Spence recounts the story of Ts'ao Yin, hereditary bondservant to the Manchu emperors. Ts'ao Yin, whose great-grandfather was captured and enslaved by the Manchus and whose descendent wrote Dream of the Red Chamber, China's most famous novel, becomes the focal point of a fascinating study that sheds light on the social and political life of the early Manchu period. This edition of Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-hsi Emperor has a new introduction by Jonathan D. Spence. "A brilliant synthesis of biographical, social, economic and institutional history,this book is a 'life and times' in the best sense of the term. It uses Ts'ao Yin's career to illuminate the Chinese governmental institutions in which he served between 1674 and 1712, and these institutions to explain the twists and turns of his own progress. . . . This masterly work is clearly a 'must' for all those who are interested in the long and eventful reign of the K'ang-hsi Emperor, which . . . still remains one of the most fascinating and rewarding periods in Chinese history."—C.R. Boxer, Journal of Asian History "A significant portrait of a family, a society, and part of an age."—Wang Gungwu, Journal of Asian Studies "[A] remarkably fine history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Chinese social and political institutions. . . . Rewarding as well as delightful reading."—E-tu Zen Sun, Journal of the American Oriental Society "A complex, intelligent work. . . . What it meant to be textile commissioner, salt censor, imperial host, imperial informant, general member of the upper class—all of this, in all its industrial, financial, administrative, and cultural implications—comes to life."—Joseph R. Levenson, American Historical Review

The spirit of adventure is at the heart of Jonathan Spence's widely acclaimed scholarship on the modern history of China. This vitality, fleshed out with deep research and attired in elegant style, has drawn countless readers to subjects otherwise approachable only by experts. Through eight books, from the story of the early eighteenth century Manchu bondservant Ts'ao Yin to his magisterial history, The Search for Modern China, Spence has made the excitement of intellectual discovery palpable for us all. In the course of his fruitful career Spence has written many shorter pieces as well, and the best of these are collected for the first time in Chinese Roundabout. Here the reader will meet Arcadio Huang, the Chinese linguist and Christian convert who moves from south China to Enlightenment Paris, marries a French woman, and in conversations with Montesquieu becomes the likely source for the Persian Letters. The poignant story of Huang's hard-won success and final defeat by poverty and disease illustrates the perils of crossing cultures. Spence's delight in intellectual risk animates his Shakespearean approach to the life of the great Qing emperor in "The Seven Ages of K'ang-hsi." Spence's great learning informs an authoritative essay on China's tragic experience with opium. Following the social process of addiction from the cultivation of poppies and the processing of the drug through its introduction by the British into China, its widespread distribution and consumption by Chinese, and the public struggle to suppress opium use, Spence explores issues of historical and contemporary interest. In an equally substantial piece he focuses on the cultural dimensions of food in Qing China, illuminating the marginal diet of a peasantry constantly threatened by famine as well as the grand banquets of the literati and the imperial household. In the work of 25 years, Spence has established himself as a brilliant interpreter of modern Chinese history. His books—among them the recent national bestseller The Search for Modern China—exhibit uncommon imagination, unobtrusive learning, verve, and elegance. These same qualities animate the essays gathered here.

Whether read for its powerful account of the largest uprising in human history, or for its foreshadowing of the terrible convulsions suffered by twentieth-century China, or for the narrative power of a great historian at his best, God's Chinese Son must be read. At the center of this history of China's Taiping rebellion (1845-64) stands Hong Xiuquan, a failed student of Confucian doctrine who ascends to heaven in a dream and meets his heavenly family: God, Mary, and his older brother, Jesus. He returns to earth charged to eradicate the "demon-devils," the alien Manchu rulers of China. His success carries him and his followers to the heavenly capital at Nanjing, where they rule a large part of south China for more than a decade. Their decline and fall, wrought by internal division and the unrelenting military pressures of the Manchus and the Western powers, carry them to a hell on earth. Twenty million Chinese are left dead.

China has transfixed the West since the earliest contacts between these civilizations. With his characteristic elegance and insight, Jonathan Spence explores how the West has understood China over seven centuries. Ranging from Marco Polo's own depiction of China and the mighty Khan, Kublai, in the 1270s to the China sightings of three twentieth-century writers of acknowledged genius-Kafka, Borges, and Calvino-Spence conveys Western thought on China through a remarkable array of expression. Peopling Spence's account are Iberian adventurers, Enlightenment thinkers, spinners of the dreamy cult of Chinoiserie, and American observers such as Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, and Eugene O'Neill. Taken together, these China sightings tell us as much about the self-image of the West as about China. "Wonderful. . . . Spence brilliantly demonstrates [how] generation after generation of Westerners [have] asked themselves, 'What is it . . . that held this astonishing, diverse, and immensely populous land together?' "--New York Times Book Review

This text, the classic introduction to modern China for students and general readers, emerged from Spence’s highly successful introductory course at Yale, in which he traced the beginnings of modern China to internal developments beginning in the early 17th century. Strong on social and political history, as well as Chinese culture and its intersections with politics, this paperback is a longstanding leader in the survey course on modern China.