The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade (Hardcover)

by Cathy Scott-Clark (Author), Adrian Levy (Author) "Inside fusty chronicles penned in a forgotten, languid script that few can now understand, storytellers recorded how it all began..." (more)
Key Phrases: jadeite bangles, fei cui, jadeite mines, Chiang Kai-shek, Dowager Empress, Son of Heaven (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In an ambitious effort that is equal parts history, sensationalized gossip and political expos‚, London Sunday Times investigative reporters Levy and Scott-Clark trace the winding path of the so-called "Stone of Heaven." The story begins in 1735, when jade-obsessed Chinese emperor Qianlong endeavors to extend China's reach into present-day Burma, reputed to contain the world's finest jade. Over time the infatuation with jade also infects French and British colonials, adventurers, Chinese gangsters, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all of whom energetically loot the Imperial Court's treasures. Descriptions and provenances of legendary jade pieces (some of which are lost for centuries at a time) are given at length. Among the history's cast of characters is bad-girl Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, who receives a tabloid treatment of her jade collection, marriages, sexual misadventures and profligate spending. But the history, the gossip, even the sensational stories of the depredations of the indigenous tribes who fiercely protected their secret jade mines, pale in comparison to the authors' visit to Burma. Risking their lives, Levy and Scott-Clark pose as gemologists and, with guile, courage and bribery, reach Hpakant, home to the mines. There they find hundreds of thousands of destitute people virtually enslaved amid prostitution, government-sponsored heroin addiction, and "jade disease, or AIDS." The story of the quest for jade ends abruptly in a kind of hell, rendered as astutely as the excesses in this intriguing history. 40 b&w photos. This book's various elements rest uneasily together; no doubt, most readers will be lured by the romance of jade, but in fact the book's strongest point is its horrifying conclusion.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This mesmerizing chronicle interweaves legend, mythology, and history with a shocking contemporary expose of the Burmese jadeite mines. Before visiting the deplorable mining pits in Myanmar (formerly Burma), the authors embarked on a circuitous research odyssey, retracing the colorful history of the valuable gemstone. Unearthing letters, diaries, and maps and interviewing countless numbers of jewelers and collectors, they pieced together the fascinating tale of a stone so beautiful and exotic that it was said to cast a spell on emperors and commoners alike. Curious as to the current state of the jade industry, they posed as representatives of an Australian mining company to gain permission to visit the so-called Valley of Death, the legendary hills of jadeite in northern Myanmar. Once there, they were shocked to find all the rumors true: the jade mines were a cesspool of abuse, disease, promiscuity, and drug addiction, promoted and sanctioned by the military, the mining companies, and the government. An engrossing combination of narrative history and undercover journalism. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1 Amer ed edition (January 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316525960
• ISBN-13: 978-0316525961
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,009,621 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and thorough read, August 11, 2002

By	Richard Harrold (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Levy and Scott-Clark are excellent story tellers, and do they ever have a story to tell. Tracing the history of imperial green jade, or jadeite, they begin in the late 18th century with Chinese emperor Qianlong and 400 rivetting pages later end in present day Myanmar. Along the way the reader is exposed to the unrestrained profligacy of the Chinese emperors and the equally unrestrained ignorance and arrogance of the British colonialists. There is scheming and plots within plots as players in the Chinese dynasties kill their own progeny to ensure a malleable emperor will succeed. The plundering by the British of the old Imperial summer palace is shocking, and the primitive warfare of the Kachin in Burma is horrifying. Levy and Scott-Clark's descriptions put the reader right into the midst of the action: the writing is so effective that you can feel the clinging humidity of the Burmese jungle as 19th century British explorers plod along in search for the mines from whence the jadeite is extracted.

Also of tremendous interest were the passages about the Dowager Empress Cixi. If all you know about the last emperor Pu Yi is from the wonderful movie "The Last Emperor," this book will help round out some of the events and issues driving the Pu Yi story along that were alluded to in the movie. Besides, the movie's only allusion to Cixi is in the very beginning when the toddler Pu Yi is brought to the Forbidden City. Levy and Scott-Clark reveal to the reader from where Cixi came and how her desire for the jadeite was often at the core of her political machinations.

And then there are the final chapters that reveal a scenario so horrifying, so shocking that even the surrealistic visions of Francis Ford Coppola in "Apocolypse Now" cannot compare.

This is definitely the best book I've read so far this year, and probably the best book I've read in the past five years. After reading this book you will not be able to look at another piece of jadeite, no matter how beautiful, and not whince because now you know the stone's infamous history.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating but uneven & sometimes trivial, June 6, 2006

By	R. D'Alessandro III "rudydale" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade (Paperback)

Having picked this book up for a discount of just $4, I wasn't expecting much, but the authors do provide some much appreciated fillers for my knowledge of recent - the past 300 years - history of China and Indo-China. The narrative does tend to be overlong and not always artfully written and what I found most trivial was the excessive attention paid to profligate movie stars and heiresses and their overwrought, self-important and self-indulgent pursuit of a green rock. When one reflects that the authors are British tabloid schlock-meisters, it explains the uneven and tedious attention to celebrity that is so wearying in their account. Maybe the British public expects such treacle, but the rest of the world, and this American reader, appreciate their research while suffering their literati indulgences.

But the story is a heartbreaking one that depicts just how low-down, vile, murderous and evil all men and women can stoop because of an obsessive attachment to material goods, one which continues to this day in Burman/Myanmar. You get the sense that entire nations can have a karmic burden that continually haunts all its people and Burma is one such nation. China seems to have come out from under its negative karma, to its great fortune.

What I found most puzzling is that if these two writers were really able to penetrate the heart of Myanmar's most horrific mine, why has there been little or no public light shed on this.

I do appreciate these British writers casting an unabashed light on the rapacious, arrogant and thieving behavior of their imperial ancestors - they do not flinch to recount uncouth, barbaric behavior by British soldiers looting the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace as well as their arrogant attitude toward all asian peoples. Now I understand the vitriolic hatred that engendered such now comical, but then potent and patriotic sloganeering by Mao's China about 'imperialist running dogs.'

Overall, a good read for four bucks, but some material could easily be skipped.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bloody Gems, October 6, 2008

By	JKI (Lady Lake, Florida) - See all my reviews

I've collected jade for nearly fifty years. I read everything I can get my hands on about this interesting stone and its relationship with China's culture. I own a First Edition of both the European and American releases of The Stone of Heaven.

The amount of blood, frustration, and suffering that goes into the extraction of jade (as well as other gems) from the earth diminishes its exterior luster.