Why read The Death of Woman Wang?

Book cover of The Death of Woman Wang

Book description

"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…

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Asian history

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Death of Woman Wang as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Henrietta Harrison

Author

This short classic was one of the first books I read when I began studying China, and that drew me into the subject of rural life.

The story of the death of Woman Wang (nothing more is known of her name) is gripping and tragic, and it is beautifully written.

From Henrietta's list on Qing Dynasty China from an Oxford historian.

Geoffrey Parker

Author

We know more about “ordinary people” from the 17th century than any previous period. Some wrote their autobiographies; others left life histories written by friends or family; others still appeared in multiple sources that historians can link to reconstitute their existence. Most of the surviving evidence concerns males, but Jonathan Spence’s book about a region in northwest China examines the impact of floods, plagues, famines, banditry, and heavy taxation on women as well as men. One of those women was an unhappy wife – we don’t even know her name – who ran away from her husband with her…

From Geoffrey's list on the 17th Century.