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 ...

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 ...

EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI:THE CONCUBINE WHO LAUNCHED MODERN CHINA By Jung Chang Alfred A. Knopf, $30, 464 pages The Empress Dowager Cixi ruled China, mostly directly, from the death of her husband ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, by Jung Chang, Cape, RRP£20 / Knopf, RRP£30 ...

Jung Chang's new biography Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013) recounts the remarkable life of China's Empress Cixi (1835-1908), who ruled China ...

Yet one iron-willed leader is conspicuously absent from the Princes’ Hall of Fame, at least in the West: that of China’s original ‘Dragon Lady’, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Adored and feared ...

Yet one iron-willed leader is conspicuously absent from the Princes’ Hall of Fame, at least in the West: that of China’s original ‘Dragon Lady’, the Empress Dowager Cixi. Adored and feared ...

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 ...