Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
by: Jung Chang

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 436 pages, b&w illustrations. Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades 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 the emperor's numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against 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 officials who were all male.