344
BOOK REVIEWS
States. After thirty years in the insurance business, rising to be president of Continental Insurance Agency, he retired six years ago to devote himself to research on the Chinese in Hawaii.
He has put into this book, not a compendium of dry historical facts, but readable stories of the Chinese pioneers, their livelihood, their customs, and the help they received from the missionaries. Many of these stories are told interestingly as excerpts from biographies and autobiographies.
As we enjoy the blessings of multi-racial Hawaii with its richness of economic plenty and social well-being, let us remember the gnarled old men among us and their forebears who made this possible. As the Chinese say, "When drinking water, think of the source."
15 July 1975
WILLIAM C. W. LEE
Footnote: Mr. Lee was former editor of the Hawaii Chinese Journal. He is a journalism graduate of University of Missouri, had done newspaper work in Shanghai, and is now retired in Los Angeles.
THE TAIPING REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT, by JEN YU-WEN, New Haven & London, Harvard University Press, 1973, xxiii, 616, ill., US$19.50.
Writing nearly 30 years ago in his biography of Tso Tsung-t'ang, a leading protagonist in the last campaigns against the Taipings, W. L. Bales commented on this period as follows:-
A complete and impartial study of this great uprising and its many ramifications has not yet been made, either in a foreign language or in the Chinese. The extraordinary amount of material in Chinese that is available for such a study has doubtless been the main reason why no foreigner has attempted or is likely to attempt the sifting of such a mass for a comprehensive and critical study. As for the Chinese, they probably will make such a study in time and have in fact already done a great deal in that direction.
Much has been written on this great subject in the intervening period, but without doubt, Mr. Jen is the first scholar to produce the comprehensive and critical study mentioned in the above paragraph. He has in fact devoted a lifetime of study to the Taiping
344
BOOK REVIEWS
States. After thirty years in the insurance business, rising to be president of Continental Insurance Agency, he retired six years ago to devote himself to research on the Chinese in Hawaii.
He has put into this book, not a compendium of dry historical facts, but readable stories of the Chinese pioneers, their livelihood. their customs, and the help they received from the missionaries. Many of these stories are told interestingly as excerpts from bio- graphies and autobiographies.
As we enjoy the blessings of multi-racial Hawaii with its rich- ness of economic plenty and social well-being, let us remember the gnarled old men among us and their forebears who made this possible. As the Chinese say, "When drinking water, think of the
source.
15 July 1975
WILLIAM C. W. LEE
Footnote: Mr. Lee was former editor of the Hawaii Chinese Journal. He is a journalism graduate of University of Missouri, had done newspaper work in Shanghai, and is now retired in Los Angeles.
THE TAIPING REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT, by JEN YU-WEN, New Haven & London, Harvard University Press, 1973, xxiii, 616, ill., US$ 19.50.
Writing nearly 30 years ago in his biography of Tso Tsung-t'ang a leading protagonist in the last campaigns against the Taipings, W. L. Bales commented on this period as follows:-
A complete and impartial study of this great uprising and its many ramifications has not yet been made, either in a foreign language or in the Chinese. The extraordinary amount of ma- terial in Chinese that is available for such a study has doubtless been the main reason why no foreigner has attempted or is likely to attempt the sifting of such a mass for a comprehensive and critical study. As for the Chinese they probably will make such a study in time and have in fact already done a great deal in that direction.
Much has been written on this great subject in the intervening period, but without doubt, Mr. Jen is the first scholar to produce the comprehensive and critical study mentioned in the above para- graph. He has in fact devoted a lifetime of study to the Taiping
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