The Last Empress has been remembered as one of history's most mon-strous women-a ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the throne in 1861 to rule China through perversion,corrup-tion,and intrigue for half a century.Yet Sterling Seagrave's magnificent biography of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi is both a timely reassessmenht of the myth and an unsparing account of the imperialism from which it arose.
Drawing on a vast array of sources,penetrating the secrecy of the Forbidden City and the sanctimony of Tzu Hsi's Victorian bIOGRAPHERS Dragom ;adu goes tje ,most vivid and accurate portrait to date of the much-maligned last empress.It is also a riveting chornicle of China's termi-nal encounter with the West and an astute look at the conquerors' need to create a monster where they could not find one.
Sterling Seagrave,best-selling author of The Soong Dynasty,grew up on the China-Burma border,the fifth generation of an American family living in the Orient for nearly two centuries.As an ivestigative jounalist in Asia,he contributed to many major newspapers and magazines.His other books include Yellow Rain and The Marcos Dynasty.He and his wife and collaborator,Peggy Sawyer Seagrave,Live in Europe.
?br />?br />?br />【Index】
Cast of Cbaracters
Autbor's Note
PROLOGUE Flowers in the Back Garden
ONE Lady Yebenara
TOW Foreign Devils
THREE The Palace Coup
FOUR Bebind a Gauze Curtain
FIVE Two Men on a Horse
SIX Life in a Yelow Mist
SEVEN Suicide of a Phoenix
EIGHT ??r Hart?br />NINE A Hostage to Etiquette
TEN The New Ironbats
ELEVEN The Wild Fox
TWELVE The Puppet Show
THIRTEEN The Betrayal
FOURTEEN The Fugitive
FIFTEEN Poisoned Pen
XIXTEEN The Sly Pornograpber
SEVENTEEN Weed People
EIGHTEEN Somebing Wicked Tbis Way Comes
NINETEEN A Mad,Rotten Scheme
TWENTY The Siege of Peking
TWENTY-ONE Chinese Takeaway
TWENTY-TWO Forked Tongue
TWENTY-THREE The Dragons Flee
TWENTY-FOUR ??at Odious Woman?br />TWENTY-FIVE Hunting Snipe
TWENTY-SIX Hatching the Dragon Lady
EPILOGUE Dynasty's End
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index