The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is visiting China in the near future and wants to learn more about the decline and fall of the last imperial dynasty. I recently visited, and I wish I would have read this book before seeing the Winter Palace and the Forbidden City. The author is not a historian. This is a good thing. My bookshelf is full of accurate and comprehensive history books, but I wouldn't recommend too many of them to anyone other than historians. Laidler writes in a style that allows the general reader to follow along and actually want to turn the pages to learn more. I would recommend the book to students of leadership as well as folks who want to learn more about Chinese history. It is a case study in power for the sake of survival and power itself. I wonder how Chinese history of the 1900s might have been different with a different power behind the throne. The ol' "do people make history or does history make people' debate ... I can't give it five stars. In spots, it reads more like historical fiction than fact. That is okay with me, but I would relegate those speculations to sidebars if this was a magazine rather than a book. Also, the author should use the more commonly accepted name of the main character - my Chinese friends were a bit mystified by my earnest description of the book until I used the commonly used name Cixi. Also, a few maps would help the general reader. All in all, a very satisfying read. If you are confused by recent Chinese history, then this will fill in a lot of gaps.