Empress Dowager Cixi : the concubine who launched modern China
Chang, Jung, 1952-2013
Book
Empress Dowager Cixi is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for forty-seven years and brought a medieval empire into the modern age. At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of Emperor Xianfeng's numerous concubines and sexual partners. When Xianfeng died in 1861, their five-year-old son Tongzhi became the next emperor. Cixi at once launched a palace coup, ousted the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China - behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her male officials. In this ground-breaking biography, Jung Chang vividly 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, an army and navy with up to date weaponry. She developed foreign trade and diplomacy and established an entirely new education system. Newspapers were published for the first time. 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 common view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot. Cixi reigned over extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, wars with France and Japan - and the 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 Beijing's Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs. The world Jung Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new.
Main title:
Author:
Edition:
First edition.
Imprint:
London : Jonathan Cape, 2013, c2013.London : Jonathan Cape, 2013.©2013.
Collation:
xiii, 436 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour), portraits, maps ; 24 cm.
Notes:
"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso.Includes bibliographical references and index.
Shelving notes:
30067 0000192033 1 31-10-2013 99 nyctro 06-11-2013 7
Contents:
I. The imperial concubine in stormy times (1835-1861) -- Concubine to an emperor (1835-56) -- From the Opium War to the burning of the old Summer Palace (1839-60) -- Emperor Xianfeng dies (1860-61) -- The coup that changed China -- II. Reigning behind her sons' throne (1861-1875) -- First step on the long road to modernity (1861-9) -- Virgin journeys to the west (1861-71) -- Love doomed -- A vendetta against the west (1869-71) -- Life and death of Emperor Tongzhi (1861-1875) -- III. Ruling through an adopted son (1875-1889) -- A three-year-old is made emperor -- Modernisation accelerates (1875-89) -- Defender of the empire (1875-89) -- IV. Emperor Guangxu takes over (1889-1898) -- The education of Emperor Guangxu (1875-94) -- The Summer Palace (1886-94) -- In retirement and in leisure (1889-94) -- War with Japan -- A peace that ruined China -- The scramble for China (1895-8) -- V. To the front of the stage (1898-1901) -- The reforms of 1898 -- A plot to kill Cixi (september 1898) -- Desperate to dethrone her adopted son (1898-1900) -- To war against the world powers: with the Boxers (1899-1900) -- Fighting to a bitter end -- Flight (1900-1) -- Remorse (1900-1) -- VI. The real revolution of modern China (1901-1908) -- Return to Beijing (1901-2) -- Making friends with westerners (1902-7) -- Cixi's revolution (1902-8) -- The vote! (1905-8) -- Coping with insurgencies, assassins and the Japanese (1902-8) -- Deaths -- Epilogue: China after Empress Dowager Cixi.
ISBN:
9780224087445
Dewey class:
951.035092951.035
LC class:
DS763.63.C58
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
202959
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Library at the Dock | -Biography | BIOG 951.035 CIXI | Available |