Cixí, la emperatriz

At sixteen, Cixí was chosen one of the emperor's numerous concubines. He then went on to live in the Forbidden City of Beijing, surrounded by eunuchs -one of whom he would later fall in love with, with tragic consequences- and his cunning allowed him not only to survive at court but also to climb positions until he became, after the birth of her son, second consort. When the emperor died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded him on the throne, and Cixí launched a coup against the regents proposed by her husband and thus took command of China. The Empress Dowager transformed a medieval empire by giving it the attributes of a modern state: industry, railways, electricity, and an army equipped with the latest weapons. It abolished such horrible punishments as "death by a thousand cuts", put an end to the traditional foot binding and took the first steps towards the liberation of women. Drawing on previously unknown sources, Jung Chang, author of the acclaimed novel Wild Swans, not only masterfully accounts for Cixí's astute and courageous handling of politics, but also takes the reader to the corners of his splendid Palace of Summer and the harem of the Forbidden City in Beijing and describes in great detail a world, a mixture of tradition and modernity, that today is almost incredible.