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Dragon lady : the life and legend of the last empress of China / by Sterling Seagrave with the collaboration of Peggy Seagrave.

By: Seagrave, Sterling.
Contributor(s): Seagrave, Peggy [(j.a.)].
Publisher: New York : Vintage Books, 1993Edition: 1st Vintage Books ed.Description: xv, 601 p. ; 21 cm.ISBN: 0679733698.Subject(s): Cixi, Empress dowager of China, 1875-1908 | Empresses -- China -- BiographyDDC classification: 951.035092
Contents:
Cast of Characters. - Author's Note. - Prologue : Flowers in the Back Garden. - 1. Lady Yehenara. - 2. Foreign Devils. - 3. The Palace Coup. - 4. Behind a Gauze Curtain. - 5. Two Men on a Horse. - 6. Life in a Yellow Mist. - 7. Suicide of a Phoenix. - 8. "Our Hart". - 9. A Hostage to Etiquette. - 10. The New Ironbats. - 11. The Wild Fox. - 12. The Puppet Show. - 13. The Betrayal. - 14. The Fugitive. - 15. Poisoned Pen. - 16. The Sly Pornographer. - 17. Weed People. - 18. Something Wicked This Way Comes. - 19. A Mad, Rotten Scheme. - 20. The Siege of Peking. - 21. Chinese Takeaway. - 22. Forked Tongue. - 23. The Dragons Flee. - 24. "That Odious Woman". - 25. Hunting Snipe. - 26. Hatching the Dragon Lady. - Epilogue : Dynasty's End. - Notes. - Bibliography. - Acknowledgments. - Index.
Summary: The Last Empress has been remembered as one of history's most monstrous women - a ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the throne in 1861 to rule China through perversion, corruption, and intrigue for half a century. Yet Sterling Seagrave's magnificent biography of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi is both a timely reassessment 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 (the most respected of whom turns out to have been a confidence man and amateur pornographer), Dragon Lady gives the most vivid and accurate portrait to date of the much-maligned last empress. It is also a riveting chronicle of China's terminal encounter with the West and an astute look at the conquerors' need to create a monster where they could not find one. - Back cover.
Item type Current location Call number Copy number Status Notes Date due Barcode Remark
Main Collection TC External Storage
951.035092 SEA (Browse shelf) 1 Available GENxx,GENxx,01,GR 5000066224 Please fill up online form at https://taylorslibrary.taylors.edu.my/services/external_storage1

Cast of Characters. - Author's Note. - Prologue : Flowers in the Back Garden. - 1. Lady Yehenara. - 2. Foreign Devils. - 3. The Palace Coup. - 4. Behind a Gauze Curtain. - 5. Two Men on a Horse. - 6. Life in a Yellow Mist. - 7. Suicide of a Phoenix. - 8. "Our Hart". - 9. A Hostage to Etiquette. - 10. The New Ironbats. - 11. The Wild Fox. - 12. The Puppet Show. - 13. The Betrayal. - 14. The Fugitive. - 15. Poisoned Pen. - 16. The Sly Pornographer. - 17. Weed People. - 18. Something Wicked This Way Comes. - 19. A Mad, Rotten Scheme. - 20. The Siege of Peking. - 21. Chinese Takeaway. - 22. Forked Tongue. - 23. The Dragons Flee. - 24. "That Odious Woman". - 25. Hunting Snipe. - 26. Hatching the Dragon Lady. - Epilogue : Dynasty's End. - Notes. - Bibliography. - Acknowledgments. - Index.

The Last Empress has been remembered as one of history's most monstrous women - a ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the throne in 1861 to rule China through perversion, corruption, and intrigue for half a century. Yet Sterling Seagrave's magnificent biography of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi is both a timely reassessment 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 (the most respected of whom turns out to have been a confidence man and amateur pornographer), Dragon Lady gives the most vivid and accurate portrait to date of the much-maligned last empress. It is also a riveting chronicle of China's terminal encounter with the West and an astute look at the conquerors' need to create a monster where they could not find one. - Back cover.