John Dardess employs a wide range of little-used primary sources (letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, memorials and imperial edicts) to provide a detailed narrative of the inner workings of the Ming government during the dramatic political repression of the "Donglin Faction" in the 1620s.

In the end the protesters succeeded in commemorating their dead and imprisoned and in disgracing those responsible for the violence. A work of unprecedented depth skillfully told, Blood and History in China will be appreciated by specialists in intellectual history and Ming and early Qing studies.