Book on Empress Dowager Cixi

Although the Western world is rapidly scrambling to improve its understanding of Chinese history, it remains – for most outsiders to the country – an amorphous sequence of similarly-named leaders and dynasties in which only the truly extraordinary stand out. In practical terms this means that, while one may see a glimmer of recognition at the name Qin Shi Huang, the only two figures with guaranteed name recognition in the West are Mao Ze Dong – and the Empress Dowager Cixi. Sadly, it is the villains who sustain; just as the most forgetful English schoolboy will carry some memory of Richard III's avuncular negligence, so Mao and Cixi's misdeeds have transcended to become part of the popular historical imagination.