The acclaimed and bestselling author Jung Chang discusses her latest book, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Random House, 2013), with Joseph Planta.

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang (Random House, 2013). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Empress Dowager Cixi

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

The internationally acclaimed and bestselling author Jung Chang joins me now. She’s in Vancouver promoting her already critically acclaimed biography: Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. In it, she chronicles the life of Cixi, who bears the Emperor a son. At the age of 5, he becomes Emperor, and she launches a coup against the regents appointed, and essentially rules China. From 1861 to her death in 1908, she casts an influential shadow on China. Deng Xiaopeng, who succeeds Mao gets a lot of credit for putting China on a modern path, but it’s the path envisioned by the Empress Dowager. I’ll get Ms. Chang to tell us more about Cixi, this book, and China, its past, and what from this book we might glean about its future. The Empress Dowager was, as Ms. Chang contends, the most powerful woman in the history of China. Jung Chang’s previous books Wild Swans and Mao: The Unknown Story (which she co-wrote with her husband Jon Halliday) were big bestsellers around the world. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, except in Mainland China, where they are banned. The website for more is at www.jungchang.net. The book is published by Random House. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, in Vancouver today, Jung Chang; Ms. Chang, good morning.

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