The Death of Woman Wang by Jonathan D. Spence (PDF)

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 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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review 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 About the Author Jonathan Spence (1936-2021): Was the author of more than a dozen well-regarded books “which illuminate China’s vast history through details that illuminated bigger pictures and themes. (The New York Times)” including The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Treason by the Book, and The Death of Woman Wang. His awards include a Guggenheim and a MacArthur Fellowship. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐i’ve read spence throughout college. This is not his best work. This is a book for a history major of the chinese studies brand. I can’t say I enjoyed most of it but there were stories here and there that were enlightening of the late Ming era. Perhaps that was the point of it to be mundane in describing the business of the plight of the poor and ordinary. This book does fill a particular void in Chinese studies. Most historians deal with the major events of famous icons like Mao, Chiang, Yuan and the Dowager but this deals with the obscure everyday peasants and what they had to deal with. I liked that element.

⭐This is an excellent book for learning about life for ordinary people in rural China. The author weaves together historical exposition and narrative storytelling to paint a vivid picture of life in China while helping us understand its legal and social customs. The names get confusing and the Wade-Giles rendering is outdated, but it’s still a very engaging book. I was surprised by how developed Chinese legal society was, with complex tax systems and exact codes for all kinds of crimes in all kinds of circumstances. Less surprising was the corruption, cruelty, and poverty of villages like the one described. The central government provided little protection and citizens were constantly suffering from natural disasters, crop failure, banditry and invasions. Poverty made lawlessness common and conflicts often erupted. I was very interested in the plight of women during that time and Spence does a great job of conveying what life was like for them. Basically, women were property and men were allowed to sell their daughters or wives for profit or in order to be rid of them. Daughters were betrothed at an early age and had no say in the choice of a husband. After marriage she is expected to be consummately devoted to her husband and in-laws. Widows were discouraged from remarriage. A husband was allowed to divorce his wife for failing to have sons, for serious illness, for talking too much, for not respecting in-laws, and for lascivious behavior. Women who committed adultery or ran away from home were considered criminals and their crime was punishable by death. Husbands were justified in killing his wife and her lover if he caught them in the act of adultery. In the conclusion to the story of the death of Woman Wang, a husband murders his wife and falsely accuses his neighbor of the crime he committed. His actions would be punishable by death, except that he was exonerated because his wife had betrayed her husband by running away with her lover before eventually being caught and returned to her husband, so the law says she deserved to die. No wonder there were so many insane women in pre-modern China, their only vengeance was to become a hungry ghost after death by suicide in order to haunt the people who treated them so badly. Yes, 17th century China was a bad place for women.

⭐. This book is very enlightening in the life of women and Chinese people in general in ancient China. It explores different aspects of the country’s development in people, religion etc. It captivates readers with the exotic depictions of China and its conditions. I, JenNA, will gladly recommend this book to anyone interested in ancient Chinese culture or just wants a collection of stories to read.

⭐I really didn’t think this book was as wonderful as it was purported to be. It was long on supposition and short on narrative.

⭐I love Asian History but let me save you some time in your life.132 pages of dry written history that oft repeats itself. Main points you’ll get from the book – 17th Century China was super difficult to live in and many were poor.This will be reiterated by painstaking spiritual stories that Spence throws in as an effort to hold the readers attention, but it hardly works.Don’t get me wrong there is tons of information, but all of it could have been said in a few pages rather than dragging it out and turning it into dreck.

⭐This book was a requirement for class. I was surprised to see that I did enjoy the book but I did not enjoy the class! Lol

⭐Very interesting and educational. Didn’t expect for woman Wang to appear only in the last 30 pages or so out of 140.

⭐Spoiler alert: woman Wang doesn’t appear until page 101.

⭐The book is very informative, but not what I was expecting going into it. It is a mix of facts and stories, though most of the stories have been cropped, acting more as brief examples of what Spence is trying to explain. The facts are very informational, but sometimes they feel a bit overwhelming.

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