Empress Dowager Cixi strikes a pose Photo courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Empress Dowager Cixi is known historically as one of the most powerful women in the world.

In her groundbreaking new biography, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), Jung Chang tells the extraordinary life story of China's Empress Cixi ...

When Xianfeng died in 1861, Cixi's five-year-old son was his only male heir and became the emperor Tongzhi, making her the "empress dowager" and a regent ruler. Cixi relinquished the regency when ...

Arguably the most powerful empress in Chinese history, Empress Dowager Cixi dominated the court and policies of China’s last imperial dynasty for nearly 50 years. She entered the court as a ...

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.” ...

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Jonathan Cape, 2013) Princess Der Ling, Old Buddha (first published 1929; Kessinger Publishing, 2007) Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins ...

Cixi, having given birth to the emperor's only heir, became the power behind the throne. The teenage concubine turned into Empress Dowager. Now, at the Freer Gallery, her power is on display in a ...

Perhaps as an escape from these oppressive restrictions, Empress Dowager Cixi, the de facto ruler of China in the final decades of the imperial dynasty, rebuilt a fantastic wonderland, the Summer ...

He is likened to Empress Dowager Cixi, who in 1900 effectively declared war on the Western powers in China, a disastrous move that helped accelerate the collapse of imperial China To many Chinese ...

Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi arrogated all powers onto herself. This period, called the Guangxu Xuantong Reign, was China's darkest and most corrupt political period.