Empress Dowager Cixi

Jung Chang (simplified Chinese: 张戎; traditional Chinese: 張戎; pinyin: Zhāng Róng; Wade-Giles: Chang Jung, born March 25, 1952 in Yibin, Sichuan) is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in mainland China

出版者:Knopf

作者:Jung Chang

页数:464

出版时间:2013-10-29

价格:USD 30.00

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780307271600

图书标签:清史历史张戎慈禧中国海外汉学百年中国传记

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Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age.

At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor’s numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China—behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.

In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like “death by a thousand cuts” and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women’s liberation and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot.

Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, wars with France and Japan—and an invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager’s conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, but also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing’s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs—one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new.

Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a crucial period in China’s—and the world’s—history. Packed with drama, fast paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population, and as a unique stateswoman.

读后感

我想，听逻辑思维告诉我一个很大的观点，既是，历史的精彩在于，过去的史料已成事实，关键看你怎么解读。 慈禧，我们一直以为是个坏人，篡权，害人，冷漠，闭关锁国，她引领的清朝，最后走向了灭亡，还为国门引进了虎狼之师。 看了此书，至少觉得慈禧是个鲜活的／聪明的女人...

这本书我没有看过，本篇评论是基于Jonathan Mirsky 在2013年12月5日纽约书评上的文章 The Surprising Empress 而来。 该文章是站在外国人的立场上研究中国历史，但据作者所写，在外国人眼中，慈禧历来也是个反面历史人物。这本书是在给慈禧平反，是换个角度看历史。这一立论的...  

我想，听逻辑思维告诉我一个很大的观点，既是，历史的精彩在于，过去的史料已成事实，关键看你怎么解读。 慈禧，我们一直以为是个坏人，篡权，害人，冷漠，闭关锁国，她引领的清朝，最后走向了灭亡，还为国门引进了虎狼之师。 看了此书，至少觉得慈禧是个鲜活的／聪明的女人...

继续读《慈禧》，此时同治已崩，同治的堂弟光绪也已十六岁大婚，到了亲政的年纪。 3岁起登基，慈禧垂帘听政13年后，光绪的亲政并非课本给我的印象“万民欢呼，恭迎少年天子”云云，反而诸重臣李鸿章为首忧心忡忡，连光绪的父亲醇亲王都知道自己的儿子不是块料...... 要知道...  

用户评价

导师从北京开完会回来倾情推荐的一本书。 字里行间洋溢着作者对慈禧的体谅与同情以至于其他人都成了脸谱化的恶人。作为一本女权视角的慈禧侧写小说是无可厚非的（我甚至很高兴有人这么做了），但不是一本公允的史学之作。

jung chang 的书从wild swans 读到Mao:the unknown story 再到这本empress dowager cixi她写毛泽东写宋庆龄写自己家的三位女人写慈禧都给了我另一个看历史的角度。历史不过使任胜利者编的小辫子。she was a giant but not a saint

这本书努力展现一个全面的慈禧，否定了历史课本里她残暴愚昧的完全负面形象。少数章节里作者对西太后的同情似乎影响了写作的客观性，但是整体来说是很出色的非虚构传记。很推荐此书。

Insightful but not completely objective. Provides a different portrait of Empress Dowager. Language is precise and nice.

很耐读，感觉好像和上学时候书本里讲的完全不一样，真是太传奇了！（看了作者参考的文献应该还算靠谱吧）