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Cover image for Empress Dowager Cixi : the concubine who launched modern China
Format:
Book
Title:
Empress Dowager Cixi : the concubine who launched modern China
ISBN:
9780307271600

9780307456700
Edition:
First American edition.
Publication:
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
Physical Description:
xiii, 436 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 25 cm
General Note:
"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso.
Contents:
The imperial concubine in stormy times (1835-1861) -- Reigning behind her sons' throne (1861-1875) -- Ruling through an adopted son (1875-1889) -- Emperor Guangxu takes over (1889-1898) -- To the front of the stage (1898-1901) -- The real revolution of modern China (1901-1908) -- Epilogue: China after Empress Dowager Cixi.
Summary:
In this biography, Jung Chang describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph, and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like "death by a thousand cuts" and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women's liberation and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Chang overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot. Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, wars with France and Japan, and an invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager's conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, but also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing's Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs -- one of with whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Chang describes here seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new. Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries, and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a crucial period in China's -- and the world's -- history. Packed with drama, fast paced and gripping, it 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.
Holds: