In this meticulously researched book, Tobie Meyer-Fong provides an outstanding contribution to the history of the Taiping Rebellion and its aftermath. In chapter 1, “War,” she explains that her primary goal is to redirect scholarship on this crucial event away from the nationalist and revolutionary agendas that have dominated recent historiography, in order “to bring the questions and concerns of those who lived through these events into our understanding of this period” (p. 14). In particular, she seeks to describe the ways in which victims and survivors attempted to understand and cope with the physical and emotional devastation wrought by this massive conflict.

While the religious activities of the Taiping are well studied, Meyer-Fong shows that religiosity also permeated the narratives that Qing loyalists used to interpret the war and explain their responses. Chapter 2, “Words,” illustrates these dynamics with the case of Yu Zhi, a failed examination candidate from Wuxi County, who was at various points in his life a teacher, a preacher, and a philanthropic organizer. Yu Zhi was also a strident religious evangelist who interpreted the Taiping occupation as divine retribution for the waste, disloyalty, and immorality that he saw as endemic to urban centers in nineteenth-century Jiangnan. Yu Zhi used his considerable writing talent to pen pamphlets, plays, and morality books that attempted not only to convince his readers of the error of their ways, but also to persuade them to donate money to support Qing troops, refugees, and war victims. For Meyer-Fong, Yu Zhi's activities demonstrate that the religious passion that we often associate with the Taiping movement was met with an equally zealous religiosity adopted by Qing supporters.

The following chapter, “Marked Bodies,” examines the perplexing problem of how to distinguish friend from foe as territory was gained, lost, and retaken repeatedly over the course of the war. A person's appearance was often the only indicator of his or her political allegiances. These allegiances could be imposed by force—as in the case of Taiping captives who were tattooed or forced to grow out their queues—or adopted out of expediency. A person's looks—hairstyle, tattoos, and clothing—could be easily manipulated or modified, and Meyer-Fong notes the alarming effortlessness with which people changed their identities: “Testimony by former rebels in Qing custody suggests that for many changing sides consisted of changing clothes” (p. 89). One author wrote that after escaping from his Taiping captors, he prudently shaved most of his forehead, “leaving an inch in case they were overtaken again” (p. 88). Such ambivalences were disturbing, writes Meyer-Fong, in a world in which fixed identities were taken for granted, yet a person's survival at any moment might depend on the ability to shift appearances.

Chapter 4, “Bones and Flesh,” addresses how dead bodies were understood and managed during the war. It is not surprising to learn that people experienced considerable anxiety surrounding the fate of their relatives' bodies during the war. Ghastly rumors proliferated about how the corpses of the war dead were violated through desecration and cannibalism. Other stories circulated about the “perfected bodies” of the virtuous dead that miraculously resisted decomposition. Most people, however, grappled with the more mundane problem of what to do with the millions of corpses that for decades littered the land. During the war, most bodies were buried cursorily, if at all. After hostilities ceased, the recovery and burial of corpses became an important philanthropic endeavor for many Jiangnan elites, as well as for Qing officials who were eager to demonstrate their magnanimity and mark the restoration of imperial order.

In the penultimate chapter, “Wood and Ink,” Meyer-Fong makes an important argument about changing standards for commemoration in the Qing, as well as the scope of elite activism in the nineteenth century. Commemorating war dead had been an important priority for the Qing state since the early eighteenth century, but in the wake of the Taiping Rebellion, the system that had been in place since the Jiaqing reign (1796–1820) was overwhelmed by the sheer number of war dead that qualified for honors. At the behest of provincial officials, the process for investigating and awarding honors to the loyal and righteous became almost entirely a local affair that was only rubber-stamped by the Board of Rites. Thus, although much of the organization and vocabulary for commemoration had been provided by the central government, local elites were given considerable latitude in selecting honorees, constructing shrines, and subtly reinscribing their own interests over those of the state.

Although local honors were often pursued by elites, for some individuals even formal commemoration could not begin to assuage the pain of war. In the final chapter, “Loss,” Meyer-Fong describes the plight of Zhang Guanglie, whose mother was murdered in front of him by Taiping soldiers when he was a young child. As a dutiful son, he requested state honors on her behalf, which were eventually bestowed. But in the end, this was insufficient to subdue his grief. Even as an adult, Zhang is tormented by his mother's death. In his essays, poems, and even his personal seals, Zhang obsessively references his mother and her death, and he finds it impossible to overcome his loss. Meyer-Fong writes, “Zhang thus highlights two responses to loss: one formal, homogenizing, orderly and officially sanctioned, and the other subjective, disorderly, personal” (p. 188).

Obviously, no single book can capture the scale of Taiping devastation, and Meyer-Fong's account emphasizes certain aspects over others. One topic that might have been examined more systematically is the experience of war-induced migration and population displacement, the scale of which “matched or exceeded that of death and destruction” (p. 65). Another important theme is that of individual ambivalence. Meyer-Fong shows that Qing militiamen committed atrocities; Taiping soldiers performed good deeds; and participants repeatedly switched sides during the war, apparently with the full knowledge of the authorities. Sources permitting, it would have been interesting to understand what might have motivated people to act as they did. Finally, the voices in this book are almost entirely those of Qing supporters—even if they are sometimes disgruntled supporters—with little to say about Taiping losses and experiences.

None of these observations, however, diminish Meyer-Fong's substantial contribution to the field. By focusing attention on the human cost of war, she has written an essential and accessible account that should be read by everyone seeking to understand this pivotal event in Chinese history.