Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom by Stephen Platt is a fantastic popular history of the Taiping Rebellion. He's especially good on covering the weathervaning west

Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom by Stephen Platt is a fantastic popular history of the Taiping Rebellion. He's especially good on covering the weathervaning western attitude towards something that was initially believed to be a sort of Christian holy war. The whole book is super interesting reading even if you have zero background in Chinese history.