The Disputed Reign of Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi Essay -- Essays Papers

The Disputed Reign of Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi Historical record is not always an accurate representation of fact. An example of this would be the long reign of the Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi, in which there were hundreds of documents written about her life. These documents have been taken and used in the production of numerous books, especially among Western historians. It was these early historians who have established the widely accepted perspective that Tz’u-hsi hungered for power, abused it, and retained it using any means necessary. This understanding is echoed today by authors such as W.G. Sebald, author of The Rings of Saturn. There are many differences between the accounts of the Western perspective and that of Sebald’s, but the overall idea of Tz’u-Hsi as a conniving and unworthy Empress is intact between the two. Still, the investigation is not over. There happens to be an abundance of historical documentation and opinion that contradicts the Western view on Tz’u-hsi. First, We stern accounts of the major issues in Tz’u-hsi’s reign will be examined; following this will be a look at how unreliable these sources are by showing their inconsistencies, where the arguments came from, and the all the other evidence supporting a different perspective on the great Empress. It is possible the Empress was everything that her enemies said she was, but the evidence at hand does not support image of a sinister Tz’u-hsi. The Western perspective on the Dowager Empress is harsh and W.G. Sebald is perhaps the harshest of all of the Western historians. One of Sebald’s first descriptions of the Empress is that her â€Å"craving for power was insatiable† (Sebald 147). Sebald wastes no time in backing up this claim. At the cru... ...istorians like Sebald recognize the uncertainty. Works Cited Bland, J. O. P., and E. Backhouse. China Under the Empress Dowager. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914. Chung, Sue Fawn. â€Å"The Much Maligned Empress Dowager : A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-his.† Modern Asian Studies. 13 vol. Cambrige UP, 1979. JSTOR. 1 May 2005 < http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X%281979%2913%3A2%3C177%3ATMMEDA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U>. Collis, Maurice. The Motherly and Auspicious. New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1944. Laidler, Keith. The Last Empress. Chichester: John Wiley, 2003. Seagrave, Sterling. Dragon Lady. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Sebald, W. G. The Rings of Saturn. Trans. Michael Hulse. London: Harvill, 1995. Vare, Daniele. The Last Empress. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran, 1938. Warner, Marina. The Dragon Empress. New York: Macmillan, 1972.