Chinese History - Emperor Kang-hsi Emperor K’ang-hsi ruled China from 1661 to 1722 and his reign is captured by Jonathan D. Spence’s book Emperor of China. The different chapters of the book deal with certain aspects of the Emperors life. Aspects that the history books to normally deal with. The information in Spence’s book is based on Emperor K’ang-hsi’s correspondence, his own writings. This writing maybe biased towards himself, but no other …showed first 75 words of 986 total…

…showed last 75 words of 986 total…Spence did not go into great detail over many facts. In addition, Spence did not address issues outside China that effected it. By this time in history, China had foreign intervention and influence. Yet Spence did not address the issue of foreign policies that K’ang-hsi made during his reign. In the end Spence did achieve his goal of gaining new insights into Emperor K’ang-hsi and wrote a good history of the Emperors life.