Customer Reviews

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

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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.

This was a strange book that was oddly compelling. It was really like two books in one: 70% history devoted to the superstitions surrounding jade, its history -- in terms of mining -- and the way the pursuit of the precious stone shaped countries, careers, and legends. The other 30% was more like a first person mystery and a journalistic effort to expose current conditions in jade producing mines.

It seems an odd balance. I wish the authors had devoted more to the 70% and less to the 30%, which could have been a book in its own right.

Still, it was packed with the kind of illuminating bits information I find so intriguing and makes for a reading experience much like mining - pursuing seams for hidden treasures. It was also overflowing with decadent imperial courts thrown into disarray by modernity (it would seem), war looters, and dealers in antiquities which raised many questions about the current repatriation of plundered and even "legally" purchased archaeological and national works of art.

What I like best about works of history is learning nuggets of information and making connections for myself. The Stone of Heaven facilitated that.

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.

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.

The facts of the history of jade are fascinating, but here are told with tiring meanderings, overlong explanations of tangential topics, and an ending that featured too much of the authors. A chore to get through.

I was very anxious to read this book from "investigative journalists" about this very special type of rare fine jade known in Chinese as "Tender Green". Sadly, it was nothing but sensational peddling of the old Imperialistic view of Asia. Neither author/investigator has any knowledge of China or Burma. They just regurgitated salatious rumors and Western prejudices that enforced Westerners self-righteousness. They have no understanding of Asian history or culture or people. As the London Time relied on a "correspondent" in Manchu Peking who could not speak or read Chinese, as the source of the news it published was a British pornography writer and warmonger. Their stories were then picked up by New York Times and spread around the world as gospel truth. I am dismayed to see some British journalists are still practicing the same kind of "journalism". "Fragrant Consort" was a flower girl? What bunk! She was the daughter of a Kirghiz leader who aided the Qing conquest of the Kazaks. Her official name was Consort Rong. She was nicknamed "Fragrant Consort" because, as a Kirghiz, she had "body oder". Her official portray clearly showed she was neither Manchu nor Mongol. And the Qing imperial house did not marry Han Chinese. Flower girl, indeed! The Chinese Emperor crazed about the stone that he sent hundreds of thousands to war and their death? That's the kind of story the British justified the Opium War so they could force China to accept opium for tea and silk and porcelin. Emperor QianLong sent 10,000 Manchu soldiers to expell Burmese invasions into Chinese YunNan. The campaign lasted from 1767 to 1771 and ended in Chinese victory and settled the Chinese/Burmese border to this day. A huge jade bowl "stolen from a warlord's court"? What? Emperor QianLong was aghast when he was given such a bowl as a tribute present and decried the waste of resources. 1745 was 300 years after this wonderful bowl vanished? Huh? The conquest of XinJiang, where this great jade bowl came from, did not even begin until 1755 and was not complete until 1759. If the authors wanted to conduct "investigative journalism" into the mysterious East, they should talk to scholars and learn to read the original sources, not talking to dubious shopkeepers and get their info from unreliable foreign press. I am so sorry that BBC "regularly" broadcast their stories and their stories are "syndicated" in 30 countries. Later, other "journalists" will say they based their stories and research on BBC. Such "yellow journalism" is the reason why there is SO MUCH PERSISTENT MISUNDERSTANDING AND PREJUDICE between Asia and the West. FOR SHAME!