Warner, Marina

New York. 1972. Macmillan. 1st American Edition. Some Foxing Along Side Edge, Otherwise Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket W/A Couple Of Tears. 0297995197. 271 pages. hardcover. Jacket Illustration - Detail of a robe embroidered with a phoenix, emblem of the empress, and said to have belonged to Tz'u-hsi. Jacket designed by Behram Kapadia Photograph by Werner Forman. keywords: China Asia Biography History Women. FROM THE PUBLISHER - From 1861 to 1908 the Celestial Empire was ruled by the iron hand of a woman - the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi. She was opportunistic, ruthless, malicious, and xenophobic. Yet, while her determination held the empire together for nearly fifty years, her reactionary, Sino-centric view of the world plunged China into poverty and civil war, encouraged foreign invasions and ultimately brought about the end of the Ch'ing dynasty. In this sweeping biography, Marina Warner re-creates in panoramic detail the reign of this indomitable, fascinating woman. The early part of her life at court and her first years of power as co-regent were marked by turbulence and war. Although the following few years saw China flourish during the successful and enlightened T'ung-chih `Restoration,' the period was colored by a growing distrust of foreign powers on the part of the empress. In 1894, China suffered a crushing humiliation when she was defeated by Japan in a short but decisive war. Attempting to save the weakening empire, Tz'u-hsi's nephew, the Kuang-hsu Emperor - whom she had named to the throne - embarked on a far-reaching program of reform. However, his progressive measures so alarmed the conservative Tz'u-hsi that she ordered his arrest and confined him in a palace at Peking. By that time, the empress's extreme paranoia had infected the whole nation, culminating in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. When an international force intervened, they invaded the capital, and put the empress and her court to flight. This compelling study, as it analyzes the decline of the empire and as China, torn from more than two thousand years of dynastic rule and tradition faces a precarious future fraught with revolution, political and economic crises, and social upheaval. inventory #12658 ISBN: 0297995197.