Reviews for Sudan Diplomatic Handbook

The average rating for Sudan Diplomatic Handbook based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-31 00:00:00 Rabin Sharma Written in 1868 by a journalist attached to the force for some time, this book tells of the Army’s struggle against the Taipings, mostly under General Gordon’s command. Wilson has his allegiances, like all writers, and reveres Gordon. But he is exceptionally even-handed about Chinese culture and motives. For example, while ceding that China’s principle of harmonious government was more an ideal than a reality, he describes it as admirably close to the ideal. He also does not believe that the empire needed the Army to defeat the Taipings. And he defends the killing of the Taiping prisoners, granted immunity by Gordon, at Suchow by Li Hung-pang. As a narrator, his style is sometimes ponderous (the book’s overlong at 390 pages) and his chronology quite bizarre, as if he wrote the book by jotting down whatever came into his head at that moment: the death of Ward, the taking of a city, the death of Ward again, the efficiency of the Chinese soldier, a list of wounds, a list of the principal characters in the Rebellion, the fall of Nanking, etc. Still, an interesting yarn told by a man close to the action.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-21 00:00:00 Tim Pickens vere good book