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    The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China
    The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China
    The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China

    Written by Caleb Carr

    Narrated by George Wilson

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    This is a story that imperial China never wanted you to hear. It is the astonishing true tale of Frederick Townsend Ward, an American soldier of fortune who changed the course of Chinese history by leading one of the most extraordinary military campaigns the world has ever seen. Generations of anti-Americanism and political turmoil in China have erased nearly all traces of Ward's legacy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 4, 2011
    ISBN9781456124458
    The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China
    Author

    Caleb Carr

    Caleb Carr is the critically acclaimed author of The Alienist, The Angel of Darkness, The Lessons of Terror, Killing Time, The Devil Soldier, The Italian Secretary, The Legend of Broken, and Surrender, New York. He has taught military history at Bard College, and worked extensively in film, television, and the theater. His military and political writings have appeared in numerous magazines and periodicals, among them The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in upstate New York.

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    Reviews for The Devil Soldier

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      This is the interesting story of someone that practically no one knows about, an American sailor and adventurer who, in the most well known of his rather unknown exploits, assembled a force of several thousand Chinese soldiers, taught in a Western style of warfare, to help the Imperial Chinese government defeat the Taiping rebellion. The book itself is fairly well written and is even provided with an appendix noting the major characters and who they were in the scheme of things. This is a good addition because the reader will be challenged by the large number of names of people and places of which to keep track during the story. As noted, it is a most interesting story, but the book is only recommended to a dedicated reader who is willing to put in the effort to keep all the details straight.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      "Chinese" Gordon and the Ever Victorious Army will be familiar names to anyone interested in colonial military history. The American who created the Ever Victorious Army is mostly unknown. This biography helps to lift Frederick T Ward out of obscurity. An adventurer who served in the Crimean War and in South America, he created a justly famous Chinese regiment-sized unit formed on Western tactics, led by Western officers and carrying Western weapons, that served the Qing dynasty as the spear-point to defeat the Taiping rebellion.Ward's fame was cut short by his almost accidental death during an unimportant siege. Wounded numerous times, he tested his luck too much by his continued exposure to enemy fire, armed only with a rattan whip. After a number of unsuitable candidates, the young English officer Gordon stepped up and completed most of the downfall of the Taiping rebellion. The rulers of the Qing dynasty unfortunately decided to abolish the successful experiment of the Ever Victorious Army. A Chinese general in command of such troops would have posed grave potential risks to the dynasty. Avoiding modernization, the Qing dynasty was bound towards extinction. The memorial built to honor Ward was destroyed by the Japanese invaders. The Chinese communists to highlight the Taiping rebellion and not the reactionaries who defeated them. The expatriate community in Shanghai was too scandalized by Ward's going native and marrying a Chinese woman. She was considered tainted unlucky goods in Chinese eyes, as her Chinese fiancée died. Ward's death after his marriage probably did not lessen Chinese superstition. She died only a year after Ward, her parents falling out of grace with the Qing dynasty, thus completing the vicious circle.The biography is a good read that could have benefited from some editorial cuts.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Carr tells the unlikely story of an American in 1850s China who finds himself leading the defense of the city of Shanghai against the Taipings. This was almost the basis for a Tom Cruise movie, but he decided to go with the Last Samurai instead. I won't recommend this for a general audience, but if you are interested in Shanghai or the Taipings, it will fill in a few gaps.
    • 2/5
      This book is about an American that became a Chinese citizen and Mandarin and commanded a military force in China during the Taiping Rebellion. It was interesting to read as the Chinese were so anti-foreigner and it surprises me that he was allowed to do all that he did. Unfortunatley, the story is told more by others than by Ward as there is little to no remaining written works by Ward. This was disapointing. I would really like to know what his ultimate goal was and why he did the things he did. Writing style was decent but a little drawn out. Worth the read, but check it out of the library.
    • 3/5
      My reaction to this is mixed. First of all, that subtitle "The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China" is horribly cringe-worthy and misleading, and is contradicted by the explanation within the book. The publisher should not have used such a sensational subtitle.The events here are absolutely fascinating: the true historical escapades of an American man who ventures to China as a freelance soldier, battled the rebellious pseudo-Christian Taipings on behalf of the Manchu government, and died in battle. Frederick Townsend Ward sounds like a truly intriguing fellow. The problem is, almost all the information about him has been destroyed. His family correspondence was purposely destroyed by his sister-in-law (gah!) and his shrine, grave, and written material in China was destroyed in waves through revolutions, the Japanese invasion, and then the Communist government. Carr still created a fascinating narrative, but it does often read as tedious with unavoidable gaps of data. The Chinese names used are a different transliteration than I am used to, so that made it more frustrated to keep track of who was who, and there are a lot of names thrown in here of Chinese, British and French soldiers, and Americans. At several points I debated whether to continue reading, but I kept on because I wanted to find out how events played out. I did make a few notes for my research interests, too.