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Title details for Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang - Wait list

Empress Dowager Cixi

by Jung Chang
ebook
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Discover the extraordinary story of the woman who brought China into the modern age, from the bestselling author of Wild Swans
In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi – the most important woman in Chinese history – brought a medieval empire into the modern age. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state and it was she who abolished gruesome punishments like 'death by a thousand cuts' and put an end to foot-binding. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot and 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 – with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences.
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.
'Powerful' Simon Sebag Montefiore

'Truly authoritative' New York Times

'Wonderful' Sunday Times

**Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize**

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Publisher: Random House

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781448191420
  • File size: 9116 KB
  • Release date: September 26, 2013

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781448191420
  • File size: 11554 KB
  • Release date: September 26, 2013
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Formats

OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Politics Nonfiction

Languages

English

Discover the extraordinary story of the woman who brought China into the modern age, from the bestselling author of Wild Swans
In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Empress Dowager Cixi – the most important woman in Chinese history – brought a medieval empire into the modern age. Under her, the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state and it was she who abolished gruesome punishments like 'death by a thousand cuts' and put an end to foot-binding. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot and 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 – with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences.
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.
'Powerful' Simon Sebag Montefiore

'Truly authoritative' New York Times

'Wonderful' Sunday Times

**Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize**

Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography History Politics Nonfiction