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Mar 29, 1979 | ISBN 9780140051216 Buy
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Mar 29, 1979 | ISBN 9780140051216
“Spence shows himself at once historian, detective, and artist. . . . He makes history howl.” (The New Republic) Award-winning author Jonathan D. Spence paints a vivid picture of an obscure place and time: provincial China in the seventeenth century. Life in the northeastern county of T’an-ch’eng emerges here 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. Magnificently evoking the China of long ago, The Death of Woman Wang also deepens our understanding of the China we know today.
Jonathan D. Spence’s 11 books on Chinese history include The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Treason by the Book, and The Death of Woman Wang. He has been awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships and is professor emeritus of history at Yale University.
Praise for The Death of Woman Wang: “Whether judged as fiction or as historical reconstruction, [this] is a masterpiece of style and narration.”—Harold Bloom “An unforgettable book of historical re-creation.”—The New Republic
AcknowledgmentsPrefaceOne: The ObserversTwo: The LandThree: The WidowFour: The FeudFive: The Woman Who Ran AwayEpilogue: The TrialNotesBibliography
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