3/5

Informative but not as enjoyable as Platt’s newer work “Imperial Twilight”. The exploration of the Taiping Revolt as a civil war against Manchu rule and the complete inability for the British to project their power and values into a decaying Chinese empire worked well. That being said there was definitely some meaty pieces in the middle that didn’t really help drive home these points. Since this wasn’t a general history of the Taiping revolt I’m not sure if a lot of it should have been included.