From 1861 to 1908 a woman, the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi, born the daughter of a minor mandarin, held the supreme power in China. Opportunistic, ruthless, malicious, she ruled over four hundred million people. Marina Warner's biography lays bare her complex personality: her extreme conventionalism; her hatred of "foreigners"; her passion for power and intrigue; her vanity and her delight in ritual; her extravagance and corruption and her love of gardens, painting and the theatre. THE DRAGON EMPRESS also portrays a China in rapid decline as poverty, civil war and foreign exploitation and invasion brought about the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty.
| ISBN: | 9780099165910 |
| Publication date: | 15th July 1993 |
| Author: | Marina Warner |
| Publisher: | Vintage an imprint of Vintage Publishing |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Genres: |
Biography: historical, political and military Biography: royalty Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours Asian history |