Jonathan Spence, Noted China Scholar, Dies at 85

Jonathan D. Spence, an eminent scholar of China and its vast history who in books like “God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan” (1996) and “The Search for Modern China” (1990) excavated that country’s past and illuminated its present, died on Saturday at his home in West Haven, Conn. He was 85. His wife, Annping Chin, said the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. Professor Spence, who taught for more than 40 years at Yale University, where his lecture classes were always in great demand, found the…