The Olympics are coming to China this summer and a lot of eyes are on the country as it emerges as a world power. China now is responsible for 14% of the world’s economy, and consumes over half of the global demand for metal and one-third the demand for oil. There are over 1 billion people living in China, and the population keeps growing each year. So how did China come to be such a giant in the world simply beyond being the fourth largest country in the world? This is an especially important question today as China continues to grow – it has recently surpassed the U.S. in carbon emissions – and is set to be the dominate world power for the 21st century. You could read a lot of history books, economic articles, and attend a couple dozen lectures and you might begin to understand how China came to be the power that it is. However, that has never been of interest to me – it’s too staid, too dry, and too biased. I prefer to read well written and well researched historical fiction on the topic of investigation. My Splendid Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse is just such a book.

My Splendid Concubine is the amazing story about Sir Robert Hart – the Godfather of China’s modernism – and his contributions to making China a emerging world power in the middle to late 1800s. Sir Robert Hart was from Ireland where he was a preacher’s son gone wrong, drinking and chasing after women while in college. Escaping his life of debauchery, Hart takes up a job with the British Consulate in China to make a name for himself. In China Hart finds that the work is not always honest, and a lot of deals and money take place behind the scenes. After a couple of months Hart finds himself in the center of the Taiping Rebellion where he encounters a family on a burning boat. Rather then run away and save himself from the growing rebellion, Hart decides to save the family and take a moral stand – and it is here that he meets the love of his life: Ayaou.

These are the kind of historical fiction books that are a real gem. Author Lloyd Lofthouse spent months in a secret, underground archive in Shanghai that held old books, manuscripts, and other documents researching the details about Sir Robert Hart, his rise to power within China, and his love for Ayaou. Considered one of the most landmark periods in Chinese (and world) history, author Lofthouse eloquently weaves together historical facts into the lives and emotions of his characters in My Splendid Concubine.

The external conflict found in the historical movement of China at the time also reflects the inner struggle of Robert Hart as he tries to accept his new non-Christian, anti-European life and living arrangement. Over the course of the book – and history itself – Hart learns to love Chinese culture and to set it on the direction it is currently going. China is an amazing country, and here is a story that will help you understand how one period can change the direction of the future – all for the love of a single woman.