Božji ljudi

In the spring of 1900, as the Boxer Rebellion rages in China, two boys from missionary families watch their world fall apart. William Lane, the son of a respected and wealthy missionary, flees with his mother to the safety of America. Clem Miller, the son of a poor, fanatical preacher, is left in the chaos: he watches his family suffer, while he himself barely survives thanks to Chinese friends and a long, arduous journey to the coast.

Years later, in America, their paths cross again. William, cold, ambitious and obsessed with power, builds a vast newspaper empire. He believes that whoever controls information and the opinion of the masses rules the world. He becomes rich, influential, but increasingly lonely, surrounded by a marriage without warmth and children he barely knows.

Clem, on the other hand, carries a deep wound from his childhood. He does not want to save souls, but hungry bodies. With the help of his wife, a talented chemist, he dedicates his life to a vision: to create enough food for the whole world so that no one will ever have to starve. His idealism is fervent, almost religious, but it often clashes with the cruel realities of politics, money, and human nature.

Former childhood friends from China, they become rivals in ideas and lives. William's world of power and Clem's world of hunger collide over the decades—from World War I, through the Great Depression, the Sino-Japanese conflict, and World War II, all the way to the tensions of the Cold War. Their families are intertwined by marriage, and their opposing philosophies—to rule or to feed—become a mirror of America and its relationship to Asia.

Pearl S. Buck masterfully transfers the fabric of personal drama onto the grand historical canvas, showing how two "men of God"—one thirsting for power, the other thirsting for justice—bear the same deep childhood wound and the same need to leave a mark on the world.