- Paperback: 247 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New Edition edition (15 July 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099165910
- ISBN-13: 978-0099165910
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
571,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #45 in Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > 1500-1900
The Dragon Empress
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Product Description
Product Description
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.
From the Back Cover
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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The best-written and most accurate biography of the Empress-dowager Tz'u-hsi. Although Marina Warner never studied Chinese, her account almost always tallies with the vernacular sources. She offers a shrewd, plausible and perceptive analysis of Tz'u-hsi's character. Her appraisal of the period has more insight and balance than Sterling Seagrave's jaundiced politically correct approach. An excellent introduction to the late Ch'ing dynasty.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marina Warner's account of the Dowager Empress's life provides a fascinating portrait of the Qing Dynasty in decline. The book is highly readable and informative. Like other reviewers I also found her account more compelling than Sterling Seagrave's biography. My only gripes with the book is that it needs a better map of China that shows where the key events took place; and that the book has not been updated for the more prevalent Pinyin transliterations of Chinese names which will be more familiar to today's readers.
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