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Book of the Week: Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

Pik Sen Lim

Gemma Jenkins

Sara Davies

Jung Chang

Book of the Week: Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China: Episode 1

Factual: Life Stories

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, Episode 1

Jung Chang's biography of the woman who single-handedly dragged China into modernity.

4 Extra Debut. Jung Chang's groundbreaking biography reassesses this formidable 19th-century stateswoman who single-handedly dragged China into modernity.

Jung-Chang's ground-breaking biography reassesses the reputation of this formidable 19th century stateswoman who single-handedly dragged China into modernity. Based on newly available documents, this biography comprehensively overturns the conventional view of the Dowager Empress as a deeply conservative and cruel despot.

Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, telegraph, and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like 'death by a thousand cuts' and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women's liberation, and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China.
A fast-paced and gripping story which takes us inside the mind of a brilliant political strategist.

Read by Pik-Sen Lim
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Jung Chang's fast-paced and gripping biography of the formidable 19th-century stateswoman

Jung Chang's fast-paced and gripping story reassesses the reputation of the formidable 19th-century stateswoman. Read by Pik-Sen Lim. Abridged by Sara Davies

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Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China

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