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Cixi "The Dragon Empress"

2012-06-30 Juvenile Nonfiction
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Release : 2012-06-30
Genre : Juvenile Nonfiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 338/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Cixi "The Dragon Empress" by : Natasha Yim

Download or read book Cixi "The Dragon Empress" written by Natasha Yim. This book was released on 2012-06-30. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last empress of China, Cixi fought ruthlessly to isolate her country from the West, while cloistered inside her lavish Forbidden City, ignoring the needs of her people. But was the Dragon Empress evil or just out-of-touch? Gorgeous illustrations and an intelligent, evocative story bring to life a real dastardly dame whose ignorance brought a centuries-old dynasty crashing down, ending the imperial system that had ruled China for millennia.

Empress Dowager Cixi

2013-10-29 History
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Release : 2013-10-29
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 120/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Empress Dowager Cixi by : Jung Chang

Download or read book Empress Dowager Cixi written by Jung Chang. This book was released on 2013-10-29. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. 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 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: 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 (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.

The Dragon Empress

2012-02-29 Biography & Autobiography
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Release : 2012-02-29
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 169/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Dragon Empress by : Marina Warner

Download or read book The Dragon Empress written by Marina Warner. This book was released on 2012-02-29. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1861 to 1908 a woman, the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi, born the daughter of a minor mandarin, held the supreme power in China. Opportunistic, ruthless, malicious, she ruled over four hundred million people. Marina Warner's biography lays bare her complex personality: her extreme conventionalism; her hatred of "foreigners"; her passion for power and intrigue; her vanity and her delight in ritual; her extravagance and corruption and her love of gardens, painting and the theatre. THE DRAGON EMPRESS also portrays a China in rapid decline as poverty, civil war and foreign exploitation and invasion brought about the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty.

The Last Empress

2011-12-01 Fiction
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Release : 2011-12-01
Genre : Fiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 995/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Last Empress by : Anchee Min

Download or read book The Last Empress written by Anchee Min. This book was released on 2011-12-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Vivid and entertaining ... this is history as it plays upon the emotions. Empires crumble, hearts are broken' THE TIMES From the bestselling author of Red Azalea comes the much-anticipated sequel to Empress Orchid At the end of the nineteenth century China is rocked by foreign attacks and local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman, Tzu Hsi, also known as Empress Orchid, who must face the perilous condition of her empire and devastating personal losses. In this sequel to the bestselling Empress Orchid, Anchee Min brings to life one of the most important figures in Chinese history, a very human leader who sacrifices all she has to protect both those she loves and her doomed empire.

Dragon Lady

1992 Biography & Autobiography
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Release : 1992
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Dragon Lady by : Sterling Seagrave

Download or read book Dragon Lady written by Sterling Seagrave. This book was released on 1992. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The last empress of China--Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835-1908)--is remembered as one of history's monsters, an iron-willed concubine who, after usurping power in 1861, ruled from the Dragon Throne for half a century. Her reign, in the aftermath of the Opium Wars and through the Boxer Rebellion until the collapse of the 2,000-year-old empire, has traditionally been seen as one of murder, poison, and intrigue. But the wicked image is false." "In 1974, to the dismay of scholars, Sir Edmund Backhouse--the biographer most responsible for the widespread vision of Tzu Hsi as monster--was revealed to be a con man. And now the author of the celebrated best-seller The Soong Dynasty has undertaken the first complete reappraisal of the empress--exposing Backhouse's writings about her as a major hoax and forgery, and establishing that the most important Western correspondent in Peking during her reign--Dr. George Morrison of the London Times--kept a secret diary contradicting his own dispatches about Tzu Hsi." "Drawing on many unpublished or long-overlooked contemporary sources, Sterling Seagrave shows us Tzu Hsi as a complex woman whose desperate--though often misguided--efforts to hold her country together take on a different coloration in the context of unrelenting foreign attempts to colonize and tear it apart. Far from being all-powerful, she was actually a hostage of vengeful Manchu princes who were using her in a power struggle against both Chinese reformers and foreign interference." "Here at last is an authentic portrait of this fascinating historical figure, as well as insight into the Western craving to believe in a sinister, dragon-haunted Orient. Dragon Lady is at once a compelling biography and the equally compelling story of how a myth was contrived, how it endured, and how, ultimately, the truth has emerged."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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