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Jung Chang - Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China Unabridged AudioBook | 2014 | Genre: Biographical | English | ISBN-13: 978-0099532392 | M4B 64Kb | Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins | 461.09 MB Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades and brought a medieval empire into the modern age. At the age of 16, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor's numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China - behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male. In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, the telegraph and an army and navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like "death by a thousand cuts" and put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women's liberation and embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative and cruel despot. Cixi reigned during extraordinary times and had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping and Boxer rebellions, wars with France and Japan - and an invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager's conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, but also takes the listener into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace and the harem of Beijing's Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs - one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old and the very new. Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official and private correspondence, diaries and eyewitness accounts, this biography will revolutionize historical thinking about a crucial period in China's - and the world's - history. Packed with drama, fast paced and gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world's population, and as a unique stateswoman. Download Link http://rapidgator.net/file/af59dc7e28b2f0d4f60a67989a406e41/Empress.Dowager.part1.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/57200fddb2ef6ac859478e144fe62430/Empress.Dowager.part2.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/8c3735c639c693250a9bfc9bcbd0bed4/Empress.Dowager.part3.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/366cac081f8a632cff9cf2da686a7fd9/Empress.Dowager.part4.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/600d208ac7d1600f607f133214b78157/Empress.Dowager.part5.rar.html http://uploaded.net/file/0j69m29o/Empress.Dowager.part1.rar http://uploaded.net/file/ata602ug/Empress.Dowager.part2.rar http://uploaded.net/file/0nfdauuc/Empress.Dowager.part3.rar http://uploaded.net/file/yruhum0q/Empress.Dowager.part4.rar http://uploaded.net/file/uhjca9ot/Empress.Dowager.part5.rar http://www.uploadable.ch/file/G5DXgNbx6xb7/Empress.Dowager.part1.rar http://www.uploadable.ch/file/CcNgqq5aTnjr/Empress.Dowager.part2.rar http://www.uploadable.ch/file/FsTQhfYrkJSP/Empress.Dowager.part3.rar http://www.uploadable.ch/file/Rw9vbe2Bn7Md/Empress.Dowager.part4.rar http://www.uploadable.ch/file/nmUyN5zDZADc/Empress.Dowager.part5.rar

Eva Stachniak - Empress of the Night (Catherine #2) Unabridged AudioBook | 2014 | Genre: HistoricalFiction | English | ISBN-13: 9780553808131 | MP3 64Kb | Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins | 517.47 MB Perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel, Alison Weir, and Philippa Gregory, Empress of the Night is Eva Stachniak's engrossing new novel, told in the voice of Catherine the Great as the Romanov monarch reflects on her ascension to the throne, her rule over the world's greatest power, and the sacrifices that made her the most feared and commanding woman of her time. A critically acclaimed historical drama and instant number-one international best seller, The Winter Palace brilliantly reimagined the rise of Catherine the Great through the watchful eyes of her clever servant Varvara. Now, in Eva Stachniak's enthralling new novel, Catherine takes center stage as she relives her astonishing ascension to the throne, her rule over an empire, and the sacrifices that made her the most feared and commanding woman of her time. As the book opens, the charismatic monarch is in her final hours. From the fevered depths of her mind, Catherine recalls the fateful trajectory of her turbulent life: her precarious apprenticeship as Russia's Grand Duchess, the usurpers who seek to deprive her of a crown, the friends who beg more of her than she was willing to give, and her struggle to know whom to trust and whom to deceive to ensure her survival. "We quarrel about power, not about love," Catherine would write to the great love of her life, Grigory Potemkin, but her days were balanced on the razor's edge of choosing her head over her heart. Power, she learns, is about resolve, strategy, and direction; love must sometimes be secondary as she marshals all her strengths to steer her volatile country into a new century and beyond - to grow the Romanov empire, to amass a vast fortune, and to control a scheming court in order to become one of history's greatest rulers. Gorgeously written with vivid detail and lyrical prose, Empress of the Night is an intensely intimate novel of a woman in charge of her fortunes, who must navigate the sorrows, triumphs, and hopes of both her soul and a nation. Download Link http://rapidgator.net/file/fddf3ca1dd109681f54e73a6f3a7dbe4/Empress.of.the.Night.part1.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/e906527561358a347440b2cfd6517a2c/Empress.of.the.Night.part2.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/8b14c888f207a285b706489c59ef85aa/Empress.of.the.Night.part3.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/f4e7a88c25cd19fc2b8c71785aecac90/Empress.of.the.Night.part4.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/43dbd29617767d7f0f5e6cb15f0f4676/Empress.of.the.Night.part5.rar.html http://rapidgator.net/file/134392b6cc1e80f0441ab673d42061f4/Empress.of.the.Night.part6.rar.html