Empress Dowager Cixi Chapter Summary

A Review of Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

In Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, Jung Chang asserts that Empress Dowager Cixi was a modernist, liberal leader, albeit a bit flawed, rather than the conservative tyrant she is often illustrated as, stating that Cixi’s reign was the most tolerant in Qing history . Chang does this by citing instances where Cixi’s policies helped China, as well as depicting Cixi as a proficient, hardworking woman who only wanted what was best for her country and its people.

Chang draws her information from (mostly) Chinese historical documents. Included in these documents are: imperial decrees, court records, official communications, personal correspondence, diaries and eye witness accounts. Many of the sources used in the writing of this book were only made available following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. It was then that historians were once again able to resume their work on the archives. In addition to Chinese records, Chang also cites the diaries, letters and memoirs of Cixi’s European contemporaries.

Empress Dowager Cixi covers Cixi’s life and reign. The book begins Cixi’s story with her

Another fault is that, while information concerning China during Cixi’s reign definitely involves many more individuals than the Empress Dowager herself, there are long stretches of the book where there is barely, if any, mention of Cixi. While much of the details are informative, there are often times where it seems as if the author is simply filling up space, rather than providing the reader with relevant and interesting