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“Cixi’s extraordinary story has all
the elements of a good fairy tale: bizarre, sinister, triumphant, and
terrible.”
— Economist
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“The author of Wild Swans sets out to rehabilitate the reputation of a woman who,
she argues, helped modernize China….While Chang acknowledges Cixi’s missteps—such
as allowing the Boxers to fight against a Western invasion, which led to
widespread slaughter—she sees her as a woman whose energy, farsightedness, and
ruthless pragmatism transformed a country.”
— New Yorker
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“In [Chang’s] absorbing new book…her
extensive use of new Chinese sources makes a strong case for reappraisal. Since
none have made use of a full range of sources in both languages, there has been
no truly authoritative account of Cixi’s rule. Her story is both important and
evocative…There is much to learn here from the experiences of Empress Dowager
Cixi.”
— New York Times
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“Chang portrays Cixi as a
proto-feminist and reformer in this authoritative account.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“Jung Chang’s book dives into a
genuinely fascinating figure: a fierce imperial consort who rules behind the
thrones of two successive Chinese emperors and helped ease china into the
twentieth century….a fantastic Machiavellian tale by the author of the
definitive Mao biography.”
— New York magazine
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“This new biography by June Chang
reveals the Empress Dowager as a surprisingly enlightened leader who, against
formidable odds, moved China towards the twentieth century.”
— Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review
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“‘Although I have heard much about
Queen Victoria,” her Chinese contemporary, the Empress Cixi once remarked, ‘I
do not think her life is half as interesting and eventful as mine.’ It is a judgment
that is hard to dispute…The tumultuous story of her reign remains astonishing.”
— Telegraph (London)
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“The times that Cixi dominated were
critical to the shaping of modern China, a country that resembles the Qing
autocracy in many ways, though without the empire’s relatively free press and
anticipated suffrage. The top echelons of Chinese politics remain as
male-dominated and vicious as ever, and Cixi remains as gripping a subject.”
— Guardian (London)
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“It was a biography by Jung Chang
and her husband Jon Halliday that finally toppled Mao Zedong from his creaking
pedestal. Now she has demolished another myth. The Empress Dowager of China…was
not the scheming, vicious, reactionary she-monster of fond imagination but the
force behind what she calls ‘the real revolution of Modern China’…What a colorful
tale it is…This is history at its most readable by an author with a point of
view.”
— Evening Standard (London)
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“[Chang has] trained her sleuthing
skills and piercing pen on the common concubine who rose to rule china, and
what she’s uncovered is nothing short of imposing….as painstaking in detail as
it is sweeping in scope….Chang’s new tome is certain to become the standard by
which all future biographies of the Dowager Empress are measured.”
— Daily Beast
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“[An] authoritative and epic
biography.”
— Toronto Star
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“A largely new—and to me, mostly
convincing—interpretation. Chang makes a unique claim for Cixi, summed up in
her subtitle: The Concubine Who Launched
Modern China…Jung Chang has written a path-breaking and generally
persuasive book.”
— New York Review of Books
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“Well-researched and provocative…Cixi
deserves to be remembered and this book is to be welcomed for giving an
important figure in Chinese history the prominence she deserves…[A] spirited
biography.”
— New Statesman (London)
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“A fascinating and instructive
biography for anyone interested in how today’s China began.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
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“Her original first name was
considered too inconsequential to enter in the court registry, yet she became
the most powerful woman in nineteenth-century China…Chang melds her deep
knowledge of Chinese history with deft storytelling to unravel the empress
dowager’s behind-the-throne efforts to ‘Make China Strong’ by developing
international trade, building railroads and utilities, expanding education, and
constructing a modern military.”
— Publishers Weekly
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“When an author as thorough,
gifted, and immersed in Chinese culture as Chang writes, both scholars and
general readers take notice.”
— Booklist
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“Corrects a longstanding
misconception about a woman whose impact on China can’t be overstated. It’s a
fascinating look at power, politics, and the gender divide.”
— BookPage
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“An impassioned defense of the
daughter of a government employee who finagled her way to becoming the
long-reigning empress dowager, feminist and reformer. Chang strongly argues for
a fresh look at this much-maligned monarch…In an entertaining biography, the
empress finally has her day.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Jolene Kim brings just the right
tone to this book about nineteenth-century Chinese history. She pronounces
Chinese names and phrases with a Mandarin accent that adds to the atmosphere…Listeners
will come away with a better understanding of China as it prepared to enter the
twentieth century.”
— AudioFile