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A review by ameyawarde
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang
5.0
I don't even know what to say about Cixi. I'm blown away. She is definitely my new favorite historical woman/person. From a strong female friendship with her husband's empress, and their brilliant take over of power in their very early 20s and acting as joint empresses together for the rest of the proper Empress's life, to Cixi maintaining control for the rest of hers, but using that power for UNBELIEVABLE reforms. She literally took the VERY conservative, anti-change China from medieval times to the modern times with very little bloodshed, because she knew exactly how to get stuff done with the minimum of upsets, even from behind the curtain that had to always separate her and all the males of her court.
It really boggles my mind with just how radically she changed China during her reign. I don't know of any other world leader who ever achieved so much, especially so -relatively- peaceably. And yet, she was a woman in power, so she has been vilified in the extreme. So many things she accomplished have not been rightfully attributed to her, and instead went to the men around her-- which is so absurd it's rather enraging after reading this book, and how useless some of those people really were.
I just can't say enough good things about this book. It was super interesting, and I need a cat or a daughter or something to name after her because she was just a super amazing lady (despite the few murders that can be attributed to her-- for a world leader, I think her death count was still much less than most.)
It really boggles my mind with just how radically she changed China during her reign. I don't know of any other world leader who ever achieved so much, especially so -relatively- peaceably. And yet, she was a woman in power, so she has been vilified in the extreme. So many things she accomplished have not been rightfully attributed to her, and instead went to the men around her-- which is so absurd it's rather enraging after reading this book, and how useless some of those people really were.
I just can't say enough good things about this book. It was super interesting, and I need a cat or a daughter or something to name after her because she was just a super amazing lady (despite the few murders that can be attributed to her-- for a world leader, I think her death count was still much less than most.)