China’s Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi (1835-1908) was truly the stuff of legend, but as veteran Asian historian Sterling Seagrave (along with co-researcher Peggy Seagrave) points out, most of the legend was false. In Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (1992, ISBN 0-679-40230-6), the author debunks the myths that unfairly maligned a woman who, he suggests, was rarely in control of the inner forces that drove Chinese political policy. 

The traditional historical take on the Dowager Empress was that she violently controlled, through murder and intrigue, family members, court officials, and public servants. Seagrave takes the reader on a revisionist path, describing the false documents used by Sir Edmund Backhouse to discredit her, and influence the writings of journalist George Morrison, who is perhaps most responsible for the public interpretation of the Dowager in the west. At 601 pages including notes, the book is exhaustive, so his four page “cast of characters” chapter at the beginning of the book is something the reader will continue to return to. The book is essential readers for scholars of Chinese history, and rights a significant factual error in the story of one of the most fascinating women in Chinese history. Buy it now on the WoWasis eStore.