Jung Chang (simplified Chinese: 張戎; 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
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Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a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.
發表於2024-06-01
Empress Dowager Cixi 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
今年2月在誠品書店買到瞭這本暢銷書,一開始以為會看不下去:大部頭加上直闆繁體,沒法在地鐵上看,不過還是會每天睡前翻幾頁。 讀張戎的《慈禧》,作者憑10年前的老毛傳記聞名,對於史料把控確有獨到之處。 從小對慈禧的印象是奢華無度,心狠手辣和專橫跋扈。前者的罪證是挪...
評分繼續讀《慈禧》,此時同治已崩,同治的堂弟光緒也已十六歲大婚,到瞭親政的年紀。 3歲起登基,慈禧垂簾聽政13年後,光緒的親政並非課本給我的印象“萬民歡呼,恭迎少年天子”雲雲,反而諸重臣李鴻章為首憂心忡忡,連光緒的父親醇親王都知道自己的兒子不是塊料...... 要知道...
評分圖書標籤: 清史 曆史 張戎 慈禧 中國 海外漢學 百年中國 傳記
這本書努力展現一個全麵的慈禧,否定瞭曆史課本裏她殘暴愚昧的完全負麵形象。少數章節裏作者對西太後的同情似乎影響瞭寫作的客觀性,但是整體來說是很齣色的非虛構傳記。很推薦此書。
評分這本書努力展現一個全麵的慈禧,否定瞭曆史課本裏她殘暴愚昧的完全負麵形象。少數章節裏作者對西太後的同情似乎影響瞭寫作的客觀性,但是整體來說是很齣色的非虛構傳記。很推薦此書。
評分語言很好,但觀點不敢苟同。頗有粉飾慈禧之嫌。
評分過去的事情真假對錯難辨,不過這本書挺有說服力!
評分大贊不足以錶達我對這本書的喜歡,好想寫一篇長長的讀後感……
Empress Dowager Cixi 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載