Publication details
TOPPING, Audrey Ronning. China Mission: A Personal History from the Last Imperial Dynasty to the People’s Republic. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. 472 pages. US$ 36.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-8071-5278-2. (Review)
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
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| Description | This is a review of a book. In her book Audrey Ronning Topping leads us through two parallel stories. One of them starts in 1891 and is about the establishment of a Christian mission in China’s interior by three missionaries: the Reverend Halvor Ronning (1862-1950), his sister Thea and his future wife Hannah Rorem. The second is the story of the Chinese nation since the end of the nineteenth century, with references to earlier events. This story describes the devastations China suffered under the corrupt rule of the last Qing (1644- 1911) emperors. It is the story of the Sino-Japanese war, the attempts at reform during the reign of the last emperor, the Boxer Uprising, the siege of Peking, the fall of the Qing dynasty, landlords rule, the revolution in 1927 and, finally, the fall of Nanking (Nanjing) into the hands of the Communists. We learn about these events not only through reference to existing secondary literature, but also through eye-witness accounts preserved within the Topping family, such as family letters and memoirs. The author uses private letters to lead her readers not only through the personal history of her family but also through several decades of Chinese history. |
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