Empress Dowager Cixi

If there is one woman who mattered in the history of modern China, it is the empress dowager Cixi…[Her] conventional image is queried in this detailed and beautifully narrated biography, which at long last restores the empress dowager to her rightful place. Chang’s book relies heavily on the vast holdings in the imperial archives in Beijing... She has a wonderful eye for the telling detail and excels at unravelling palace intrigues and corridor politics. - Sunday Times

In this vivid biography, as colourful and intricate as the embroidery on a Chinese robe, [Jung Chang] uses new evidence and meticulous research to cast a spotlight on the amazing woman she regards as the mother of modern China…This is a rich, dramatic story of rebellions, battles, plotting, rivalry, foreign invasion, punishment and forbidden love. - Daily Mail

Jung Chang tells a story and what a colourful tale it is…This is history at its most readable. - Evening Standard

Chang has a proven Midas touch... Empress Dowager, by returning to female experience in the style of Wild Swans yet focusing, like Mao, on a controversial ruler, should appeal to fans of both. - Financial Times

A truly authoritative account of Cixi’s rule. Her story is both important and evocative. - New York Times

Filled with new revelations, it's a gripping and surprising story of an extraordinary woman in power. Using Chinese sources, totally untapped by western books, this reappraises one of the great monstresses of modern history... Jung Chang's revisionism means that this book reveals a new and different woman: ambitious, sometimes murderous, but pragmatic and unique. All of this adds up to make Empress Dowager Cixi a powerful read. - BBC History Magazine

This careful work - heavy on detail and full of drama - has waited a long time to be told and you'll reach the end with a sense of having known this formidable woman. - South China Morning Post

Chang seeks to change the record and give an original analysis of the Empress based on recently released documents from the stateswoman’s court. - UK Regional Press Syndication

Jung Chang certainly gives Cixi her due. - Spectator

An absorbing read. - Independent on Sunday

An engaging and informed political biography … is sure to make waves around the world. - Press Association

Well-researched and provocative… Spirited. - New Statesman

Page-turner of a biography. - Mail on Sunday

A captivating cradle-to-grave biography… Jung recreates this complicated eighteenth-century world in the clearest possible terms. - Vogue

Jung Chang is valiant to try to rescue the empress from her wild detractors: Cixi was no more a monster than most other insecure absolutists. - The Times

A page-turning story. - Catholic Herald

One of the most engaging and informed political biographies I have ever read. - Lincolnshire Echo

[It] will revolutionise historical thinking about a crucial period in the history of China and, indeed, the world. - Country & Town House

Reminds us how China's past influences the present. - Observer

I was... enticed by the cover, a very rare photograph of the imperial consort in her finery, artfully deflecting her eyes from the camera lens (normally she 'received' from behind a screen, invisible), trailing fingernails several inches long beneath shields of gold, rubies and pearls... Engrossing. - Herald

Although most of Cixi's previous biographers have demonized her, others have been more measured. This is a spirited, if partisan contribution. - Guardian

Chang has a novelists eye for the small detail, enthralling with her story of how a mere concubine .. came to power in China … both well researched and hugely accessible. - Business Post, Ireland

Jung Chang is a vivid guide… She has a novelist’s eye for the telling detail. - The Economist

Utterly beguiling. - Brighton & Hove Independent

Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot... This biography may revolutionise thinking about a crucial period in China's history. - Asian Art Newspaper

Jung Chang charges her revisionist narrative with great energy and conviction. - The Times

This is an important book, drawing attention to a period in China's history that has received little, and usually only negative, attention. Chang writes with verve, energy and evident concern for the country in which her books are proscribed and her family was made to suffer during the Cultural Revolution. - BBC History Magazine

Amchee Min’s two novels about the Empress Dowager – Empress Orchid and The Last Empress – have sold over 350,000 copies in the TCM.

An extraordinary story, and one that is unknown to most Western readers. Many of the details of Cixi’s life are almost unbelievable, which makes for a fascinating book that is page-turningly accessible and entertaining.

Empress Dowager Cixi is like Jung Chang’s Mao in that her long and detailed researches have revealed a totally different picture to the one that has prevailed for a hundred years. It is less controversial than Mao, but will provoke comment.