Promotional Information

Entertaining and masterly biography of Madame Chiang Kai-shek - the woman who built modern China.

About the Author

Hannah Pakula attended Wellesley College, the Sorbonne and Southern Methodist University. She is a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times.

Reviews

This engrossing biography tells of her fight to thrive at the world's top tables.
*INDEPENDENT i NEWSPAPER*

With the ability to bring US congress to its feet, she makes extraordinary reading.
*DAILY EXPRESS*

Hers is an epic story
*HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER*

This well written and exciting book tells the unforgettable story of a woman who had a profound influence on 20th-century history.
*GOOD BOOK GUIDE*

This engrossing biography tells of her fight to thrive at the world's top tables. -- Boyd Tonkin * INDEPENDENT i NEWSPAPER *
With the ability to bring US congress to its feet, she makes extraordinary reading. * DAILY EXPRESS *
Hers is an epic story * HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER *
This well written and exciting book tells the unforgettable story of a woman who had a profound influence on 20th-century history. * GOOD BOOK GUIDE *

Pakula, an experienced biographer of royal women (An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick), looks at the imperious (if not imperial) wife of the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, presenting a richly complex account of 20th-century China that, despite its length, remains thoroughly engrossing to the end. Born May-ling Soong (1897-2003) and educated in America, Madame Chiang and her five Soong siblings were wealthy, Christian, fluent in English and major players in Chinese politics. Marrying Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, the strong-minded and hot-tempered, shrewd and ruthless May-ling quickly became a partner in his efforts as Chinese leader until the Japanese invaded, and then in 1945 when Mao's Communists drove him to Formosa (modern-day Taiwan), which he ruled until his death in 1975. From the 1930s to 1950s, Americans idolized Madame Chiang as a symbol of Chinese resistance to the brutal Japanese and as an anticommunist stalwart. But critics of her and Chiang's ineffective, authoritarian, corrupt leadership soon became the majority. Pakula draws a vivid if often unflattering portrait of a charismatic Chinese patriot, her husband and family, in tumultuous and tragic times. 16 pages of b&w photos; maps. (Nov. 13) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.