Jonathan Mirsky

The Chinese Hilary Clinton

Wu: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God

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Sutton 256pp £20 order from our bookshop

For over 2,000 years, women rulers and aspiring rulers have been vilified in China and, often, in the West. The title of Jonathan Clements’s latest book is indicative of the abuse. From the Han Dynasty’s Empress Lu, to the Qing’s Dowager Empress in the late nineteenth century, to Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, Chinese women in power have been accused of having made their ways to the top by nefarious means, and especially by having employed extraordinary sexual powers.

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