Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

A brilliant ground-breaking biography of the most unfairly slandered person in Chinese history.

For over a century, Dowager Empress Cixi has been portrayed by conventional historians as a hidebound reactionary who usurped the throne of China to stultify China's progress and doomed the dynasty with her corruption and obtuseness. Jung Chang has deftly turned the slander on its head and written what is destined to be the definitive biography of one of the most wrongfully maligned persons in history, using massive primary documentation, most of it never before accessed by a historian. Among the debunked lies: (1) Although she did use some of the interest income from the naval fund to rebuild the Summer Palace, a decision she later deeply regretted, she did not bankrupt the navy. (2) She did not depose her adopted son, Emperor Guangxu, to thwart progress. Most of the reforms of the "100 Days" were her own ideas. The Emperor was suborned by Youwei Kang, an egotistical traitor who swayed the weak-willed Emperor with base flattery, to plot Cixi's assassination towards the end of turning his own empire over to Japan. (3) Against her better judgment, she did give reluctant support to the Boxers in the face of outrageous provocations by European powers, especially Germany, against Chinese sovereignty and abuses of the Chinese people. (4) She admired westerners and battled against her own councilors to modernize China. Her final major act was to approve a draft Constitution with an elected Parliament which was never realized. She was restrained by the innate conservatism of the country, the xenophobia of the people surrounding the throne and traditional restrictions on the role of women. Jung Chang illustrates this with brilliant descriptions of the pomp and pageantry of the imperial court contrasted with the squalor and ignorance that characterized most of the country. Some critics have said this book verges on hagiography, but the author carefully documents and substantiates every point she makes, and is also ready to point out Cixi's faults and errors. This is a bre...