Empress Dowager Cixi
The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
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From internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, this is the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years.
A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died. In a brilliant move, Cixi enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent.
Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.
About this Author
JUNG CHANG was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen and then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student and, later, an assistant lecturer at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and was subsequently awarded a scholarship by York University, where she obtained a PhD in linguistics in 1982, the first person from the People's Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university.
Reviews
Praise for Empress Dowager Cixi:
o "With this authoritative and epic biography, Chang harnesses Cixi's ambition and makes a bold attempt to broadcast Cixi's achievements against the weight of history while chronicling China at the crossroads of a new era of change." Jason Beerman, Toronto Star
o "Packed with drama, fast-paced and gripping, [Empress Dowager Cixi] is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world's population, and as a unique stateswoman." Berkeleyside
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