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Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
''Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China'' is a 2013 book written by Jung Chang, published by Alfred A. Knopf.
In October 2013, Chang published a new biography of the Empress Dowager Cixi, who unofficially controlled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years, from 1861 to her death in 1908. Chang argues that Cixi has been "deemed either tyrannical and vicious, or hopelessly incompetent—or both", and that this view is both simplistic and inaccurate. Chang deeply admires Cixi, and portrays her as intelligent, open-minded, and a proto-feminist limited by a xenophobic and deeply conservative imperial bureaucracy. Although Cixi is often accused of reactionary conservatism (especially for her treatment of the Guangxu Emperor during and after the Hundred Days' Reform), Chang concludes that Cixi "brought medieval China into the modern age."〔(Schell, Orville. "Her Dynasty." ''New York Times.'' October 25, 2013. ) Accessed 2013-10-25.〕 Newspaper reviews have also been positive in their assessment. Te-Ping Chen, writing in the ''Wall Street Journal'', found the book "packed with details that bring to life its central character".〔(Chen, Te-Ping."Jung Chang Rewrites Empress Cixi." ''Wall Street Journal.'' October 3, 2013. ) Accessed 2013-11-03.〕
==Reception==
The ''New York Times'' reported that a number of historians were wary of Chang's conclusions, however, because the book was so laudatory of Cixi.〔(Bradsher, Keith. "Another Look at the Empress Dowager Cixi, This Time as the Great Modernizer." ''New York Times.'' October 30, 2013. ) Accessed 2013-11-03.〕 China expert Orville Schell called Chang's new biography of Cixi "absorbing" although sometimes bordering on hagiography.〔 He had high praise for Chang's extensive use of Chinese-language sources, both primary and modern, which have rarely been used in English-language biographiers of Cixi.〔 John Delury, assistant professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in South Korea, also had praise for Chang's use of new Chinese-language sources. But he cautioned that the book assessed so positively nearly everything that Cixi did that the sources may not have been objectively assessed. He implied that Chang's book was neither very scholarly nor very careful in its use of sources.〔 Mass media reviewers have been similarly distrustful because of the book's overwhelmingly positive tone. James Owne in ''The Daily Telegraph'' felt Chang "airbrushed" Cixi, concluding: "One can see why she has fallen in love with her spirited subject, but the woman who ended the custom of foot-binding was capable of great cruelty and stupidity of her own. The smell of blood needs to be acknowledged, not just that of lilies."〔(Owen, James. "Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang, Review." ''The Daily Telegraph.'' October 11, 2013. ) Accessed 2013-11-03.〕
Isabel Hilton in ''The Guardian'' found Chang's praise for Cixi "a little unqualified".〔(Hilton, Isabel. "''Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China'' by Jung Chang – Review." ''The Guardian.'' October 25, 2013. ) Accessed 2013-11-03.〕 She points out, for example, that Cixi crushed the Guangxu Emperor's Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, but then implemented many more reforms after the Boxer Rebellion. Hilton observes that Chang interprets Cixi's actions in the most positive light possible, and emblematic of Cixi's progressive views. Other historians have interpreted these actions as those of a ruler who wants to cling to power, and whose post-Boxer Rebellion policies were "grudging concessions."〔 But she applauded the book for making "a spirited, if partisan contribution" to the literature on Cixi.〔
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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