She entered China's Forbidden City as a teenage concubine. She died as the most powerful woman in the Qing Empire.
Empress Dowager Cixi spent nearly half a century at the center of imperial power, ruling from behind a curtain while emperors came and went, rebellions threatened the throne, foreign armies entered Beijing, and a changing China demanded answers the old order could no longer provide.
Was Cixi a ruthless conservative who held China back, or a political survivor who understood that the empire could not survive without change?
From the palace intrigues that brought her to power to the reforms of her final years, this book follows the woman behind one of history's most enduring imperial mysteries. It explores the emperors she controlled, the crises she survived, the reforms she embraced, and the dynasty that collapsed only a few years after her death.
Step behind the curtain and discover the woman who ruled an empire without ever wearing its crown.