Author: Jonathan D. Spence Year: 1978 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History Cultures: China, Asia
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ISBNs: 9780140051216 014005121X |
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Drawing on local Chinese histories, the memoirs of scholars, and other contemporary writings, Chinese historian Jonathan Spence reconstructs an extraordinary tale of rural tragedy in a remote corner of Shantung province in 17th-century China. Life in the county of T'an-ch'eng emerges as an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry, and heavy taxation. Against this turbulent background a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands.
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