The Question of Hu (Magill’s Literary Annual 1989)
At a glance:
- Author: Jonathan D. Spence
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Historical biography
- Time of Work: The eighteenth century
- Setting: China and France
- Principal Characters: Jean François Foucquet, John Hu
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: France or French people, Missions or missionaries, Writing, Books, Eighteenth century, China or Chinese people, Mental institutions, hospitals or asylums, Jesuits
- Locales: France, China
Jonathan Spence, professor of history at Yale University, has written a number of critically acclaimed books on Chinese history, and in the process has almost single-handedly developed a new genre of historical writing. Typically, Spence's inquiry focuses on a seemingly minor incident and brings it to life with a wealth of “trivial” detail: what clothes people wore, what foods they ate, how they spent their leisure time. These studies have been both praised and criticized for their novelistic tendencies. Although every bit of evidence is scrupulously documented, Spence's scholarship...
[The entire page is 1886 words long]
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