Here is a great historian's powerful account of the largest uprising in human history. At the center of this history of China's Taiping Rebellion (1845-64) stands Hong Xiuquan, a failed student of Confucian doctrine who ascends to heaven in a dream, meets his heavenly family-God, Mary, and his older brother, Jesus-and returns to earth charged to eradicate the "demon-devils," the alien Manchu rulers of China. By the time his terrible reign comes to an end, twenty million Chinese lie dead.