Origins of the Taiping Vision: Cross-Cultural Dimensions of a Chinese Rebellion
The transmission of systems of ideas across wide cultural gaps is hard enough to study on any scale of human organization. It is particularly hard when two large, complex cultures meet under traumatic circumstances, as did China and the West in the nineteenth century. The myriad variables in such a situation dictate special care in defining the specific terms and conditions under which ideas are transmitted. The present case suggests three points worth attention: first, the precise language of the textual material that impinges on the host culture; second, the underlying structure of the historical circumstances into which this material is introduced; third, the process whereby the foreign material becomes important to sectors of society outside the group that first appreciated and received it and thereby becomes a significant historical force.