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The Women Who Ruled China
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Book Synopsis Empress Dowager Cixi by : Jung Chang
Download or read book Empress Dowager Cixi written by Jung Chang and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died in 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.
Download or read book Wild Swans written by Jung Chang and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
Book Synopsis Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers by : N. Harry Rothschild
Download or read book Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis, Divinities, and Dynastic Mothers written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu, is the only woman to have ruled China as emperor over the course of its 5,000-year history. How did she—in a predominantly patriarchal and androcentric society—ascend the dragon throne? Exploring a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries, this multifaceted history suggests that China's rich pantheon of female divinities and eminent women played an integral part in the construction of Wu Zhao's sovereignty. Wu Zhao deftly deployed language, symbol, and ideology to harness the cultural resonance, maternal force, divine energy, and historical weight of Buddhist devis, Confucian exemplars, Daoist immortals, and mythic goddesses, establishing legitimacy within and beyond the confines of Confucian ideology. Tapping into powerful subterranean reservoirs of female power, Wu Zhao built a pantheon of female divinities carefully calibrated to meet her needs at court. Her pageant was promoted in scripted rhetoric, reinforced through poetry, celebrated in theatrical productions, and inscribed on steles. Rendered with deft political acumen and aesthetic flair, these affiliations significantly enhanced Wu Zhao's authority and cast her as the human vessel through which the pantheon's divine energy flowed. Her strategy is a model of political brilliance and proof that medieval Chinese women enjoyed a more complex social status than previously known.
Download or read book Notable Women of China written by and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text offers in-depth biographies of Chinese women from the fifth century BCE to the early 20th century. It reflects their achievements in poetry, literature, painting, music, dancing, calligraphy, medicine, science, politics, military leadership, diplomacy, religion, family and community life.
Download or read book Imperial Woman written by Pearl S. Buck and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Women Shall Not Rule by : Keith McMahon
Download or read book Women Shall Not Rule written by Keith McMahon and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives. Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.
Download or read book The Last Empress written by Anchee Min and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Vivid and entertaining ... this is history as it plays upon the emotions. Empires crumble, hearts are broken' THE TIMES From the bestselling author of Red Azalea comes the much-anticipated sequel to Empress Orchid At the end of the nineteenth century China is rocked by foreign attacks and local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman, Tzu Hsi, also known as Empress Orchid, who must face the perilous condition of her empire and devastating personal losses. In this sequel to the bestselling Empress Orchid, Anchee Min brings to life one of the most important figures in Chinese history, a very human leader who sacrifices all she has to protect both those she loves and her doomed empire.
Book Synopsis The Women Who Ruled China by : Stephanie Balkwill
Download or read book The Women Who Ruled China written by Stephanie Balkwill and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Position of Woman in Early China by : Albert R. O'Hara
Download or read book The Position of Woman in Early China written by Albert R. O'Hara and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Minority Rules written by Louisa Schein and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender, ethnicity, and nation in China, as seen through an ethnography of the changing cultural production of the Miao, a minority population.
Book Synopsis Qing Governors and Their Provinces by : Robert K. Guy
Download or read book Qing Governors and Their Provinces written by Robert K. Guy and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the province emerged as an important element in the management of the expanding Chinese empire, with governors -- those in charge of these increasingly influential administrative units -- playing key roles. R. Kent Guy’s comprehensive study of this shift concentrates on the governorship system during the reigns of the Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors, who ruled China from 1644 to 1796. In the preceding Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the responsibilities of provincial officials were ill-defined and often shifting; Qing governors, in contrast, were influential members of a formal administrative hierarchy and enjoyed the support of the central government, including access to resources. These increasingly powerful officials extended the court’s influence into even the most distant territories of the Qing empire. Both masters of the routine processes of administration and troubleshooters for the central government, Qing governors were economic and political administrators who played crucial roles in the management of a larger and more complex empire than the Chinese had ever known. Administrative concerns varied from region to region: Henan was dominated by the great Yellow River, which flowed through the province; the Shandong governor dealt with the exchange of goods, ideas, and officials along the Grand Canal; in Zhili, relations between civilians and bannermen in the strategically significant coastal plain were key; and in northwestern Shanxi, governors dealt with border issues. Qing Governors and Their Provinces uses the records of governors’ appointments and the laws and practices that shaped them to reconstruct the development of the office of provincial governor and to examine the histories of governors’ appointments in each province. Interwoven throughout is colorful detail drawn from the governors’ biographies.
Book Synopsis Women and Property in China, 960-1949 by : Kathryn Bernhardt
Download or read book Women and Property in China, 960-1949 written by Kathryn Bernhardt and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on newly available archival case records, this book demonstrates that Chinese women's rights to property changed substantially from the Song through the Qing dynasties, and even more dramatically under the Republican Civil Code of 1929-30.
Book Synopsis The Age of Confucian Rule by : Dieter Kuhn
Download or read book The Age of Confucian Rule written by Dieter Kuhn and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed. With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials—products of a meritocratic examination system—took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist’s eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes—which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors—redefined China’s understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese. The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era. “A scholar should congratulate himself that he has been born in such a time” (Zhao Ruyu, 1194).
Download or read book Dreams of Flight written by Fran Martin and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dreams of Flight, Fran Martin explores how young Chinese women negotiate competing pressures on their identity while studying abroad. On one hand, unmarried middle-class women in the single-child generations are encouraged to develop themselves as professional human capital through international education, molding themselves into independent, cosmopolitan, career-oriented individuals. On the other, strong neotraditionalist state, social, and familial pressures of the post-Mao era push them back toward marriage and family by age thirty. Martin examines these women’s motivations for studying in Australia and traces their embodied and emotional experiences of urban life, social media worlds, work in low-skilled and professional jobs, romantic relationships, religion, Chinese patriotism, and changed self-understanding after study abroad. Martin illustrates how emerging forms of gender, class, and mobility fundamentally transform the basis of identity for a whole generation of Chinese women.
Book Synopsis The Confucian Four Books for Women by :
Download or read book The Confucian Four Books for Women written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the first English translation of the Confucian classics, Four Books for Women, with extensive commentary by the compiler, Wang Xiang, and introductions and annotations by translator Ann A. Pang-White. Written by women for women's education, the Confucian Four Books for Women spanned the 1st to the 16th centuries, and encompass Ban Zhao's Lessons for Women, Song Ruoxin's and Song Ruozhao's Analects for Women, Empress Renxiaowen's Teachings for the Inner Court, and Madame Liu's (Chaste Widow Wang's) Short Records of Models for Women. A female counterpart to the famous Sishu (Four Books) compiled by Zhu Xi, Wang Xiang's Nü sishu provides an invaluable look at the long-standing history and evolution of Chinese women's writing, education, identity, and philosophical discourse, along with their struggles and triumphs, across the millennia and numerous Chinese dynasties. Pang-White's new translation brings the authors of the Four Books for Women to life as real, living people, and illustrates why they wrote and how their work empowered women.
Book Synopsis China in the 21st Century by : Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
Download or read book China in the 21st Century written by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-31 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need to understand this global giant has never been more pressing: China is constantly in the news, yet conflicting impressions abound. Within one generation, China has transformed from an impoverished, repressive state into an economic and political powerhouse. In the fully revised and updated second edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, China expert Jeffrey Wasserstrom provides cogent answers to the most urgent questions regarding the newest superpower, and offers a framework for understanding its meteoric rise. Focusing his answers through the historical legacies--Western and Japanese imperialism, the Mao era, and the massacre near Tiananmen Square--that largely define China's present-day trajectory, Wasserstrom introduces readers to the Chinese Communist Party, the building boom in Shanghai, and the environmental fall-out of rapid Chinese industrialization. He also explains unique aspects of Chinese culture such as the one-child policy, and provides insight into how Chinese view Americans. Wasserstrom reveals that China today shares many traits with other industrialized nations during their periods of development, in particular the United States during its rapid industrialization in the 19th century. He provides guidance on the ways we can expect China to act in the future vis-à-vis the United States, Russia, India, and its East Asian neighbors. The second edition has also been updated to take into account changes China has seen in just the past two years, from the global economic shifts to the recent removal of Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai from power. Concise and insightful, China in the 21st Century provides an excellent introduction to this significant global power.
Book Synopsis Women in Early Imperial China by : Bret Hinsch
Download or read book Women in Early Imperial China written by Bret Hinsch and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written for his dissertation at Harvard in 1993, Hinsch's (history, National Chung Cheng U., Taiwan) fascinating study of women during the Qin and Han periods in China provides a useful addition to the history of ancient women as well as life in early imperial China. The lives of women and their roles are examined in several contexts, including cosmology, kinship, law, government, learning, and ritual. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
