The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China | 
| Author: Hannah Pakula
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 12315
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 816
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.7 x 2.4
ISBN: 1439148937
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.042092
EAN: 9781439148938
ASIN: 1439148937
Publication Date: November 3, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9781439148938 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
With the beautiful, powerful, and sexy Madame Chiang Kai-shek at the center of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century, this is the story of the founding of modern China, starting with a revolution that swept away more than 2,000 years of monarchy, followed by World War II, and ending in the eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taiwan.An epic historical tapestry, this wonderfully wrought narrative brings to life what Americans should know about China -- the superpower we are inextricably linked with -- the way its people think and their code of behavior, both vastly different from our own. The story revolves around this fascinating woman and her family: her father, a peasant who raised himself into Shanghai society and sent his daughters to college in America in a day when Chinese women were kept purposefully uneducated; her mother, an unlikely Methodist from the Mandarin class; her husband, a military leader and dogmatic warlord; her sisters, one marriedto Sun Yat-sen, the George Washington of China, the other to a seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius; and her older brother, a financial genius. This was the Soong family, which, along with their partners in marriage, was largely responsible for dragging China into the twentieth century. Brilliantly narrated, this fierce and bloody drama also includes U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell; Claire Chennault, head of the Flying Tigers; Communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai; murderous warlords; journalists Henry Luce, Theodore White, and Edgar Snow; and the unfortunate State Department officials who would be purged for predicting (correctly) the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the representative of an Eastern ally in the West, Madame Chiang was befriended -- before being rejected -- by the Roosevelts, stayed in the White House for long periods during World War II, and charmed the U.S. Congress into giving China billions of dollars. Although she was dubbed the Dragon Lady in some quarters, she was an icon to her people and is certainly one of the most remarkable women of the twentieth century.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 An Unforgetable Woman November 23, 2009
Frances J. Kiernan (New York City)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
A good biography tells a good story. With grace and great sympathetic imagination Hannah Pakula gives us a flesh and blood heroine, never a mere historical figure. For all that she is aware of her subject's faults, she does justice to her courage, her wit, and her sheer endurance. Thanks to its epic scope and rich cast of characters, this biography reads at times like one of those great three-volume nineteenth century novels. By showing May-ling Soong not only in the context of her powerful and problematic family but also at the very center of China's tumultuous modern history, Pakula makes clear how tangled the choices became for this Wellesley girl who dreamed of making something of her life. Having made a great match, by allying herself with what looks to be the man of the hour, the young Madame Chiang Kai-shek soon finds herself struggling to put a good face on the ill-advised decisions of a corrupt and capricious dictator. Not only is she serving as his translator but once Japan invades Manchuria and the Communists begin to present a serious threat to her husband's government, she increasingly assumes the role of his ambassador to the Western World. If power corrupts, then absolute power can be said to corrupt absolutely. It is to Hannah Pakula's credit that the reader leaves this book wondering what would have happened to May-ling if, instead of her older sister, she'd had a chance to marry Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. Or, perhaps better yet, if her romantic attachment to Wendell Wilkie hadn't been brought to an abrupt end by his death.
The Last Empress: 105 years of spirited life for May-Ling the Chinese Dragon Lady who was the wife of Chang Kai-Chek December 7, 2009
C. M Mills (Knoxville Tennessee)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Her name was May-Ling Soong. She lived from 1897 to 2003. She came from a wealthy household. Her father Charlie Soong raised himself from peasanthood to become a rich businessman. One of her sisters married Mr. Kung a millionaire businessman, another married the legendary Sun Yat-Sen the founder of modern China. One of her brothers T.V. Soong had a PH.D from Columbia in finance and was among the richest men in the world. What a family and what a lady! May-Ling studied in Georgia and graduated from Wellesley where her best friend was American Emily Mills.
May-Ling spoke perfect English, was materialistic and a beautiful and sexy woman. In the 1920s she wed Kai-Shek. He became the dictator of China who lost in the Chinese Civil War against Mao's Communists. CKS and Mayling retreated to Taiwain in 1949 where they set up the nationalistic Chinese government. CKS died in 1975. May-Ling often spent a good deal of time in America during the power couple's long marriage. She often had skin problems and other ailments. She could be nervous and demanding of those around her. She could also charm the pants off famous men. Her spouse CKS was often cruel having no problem with eliminating those who opposed his policies.
May-Ling was a devoted Methodist Christian and talked CKS into becoming a Christian. May-Ling spent much of her life in America. She lived in New York from 1975 until her death. She probably did not love CKS and had no children. During World War II she was adroit at bringing in millions of dollars to Chinese coffers as they fought the Japanese. She often visited the White House becoming friendly with Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR. President Truman did not like her since he felt she supported a corrupt regime. (which she did!). In many ways, as Pakula notes, CKS operated like a Chinese warlord.
May-Ling and US presidential contender Wendell Wilkie had an affair. She could be kind or cruel depending upon her mood or political strategy. May-Ling could also be warm or aloof. She was adept at treating her servants like coolies!
One of her sisters lived in Communist China and there were many quarrels and disagreements in her distinguished family.
Author Pakula has written a massive 800 page book on Madame CKS and her times. It is excellent not only for the biography of May-Ling but also for examining in depth China's troubled 20th century history. The book is well illustrated with maps and photos. This is the best book available on May-Ling. It is a detailed and illuminating account of the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest women.
Love her or loath her this is one of the best biographies of the year! Kudos to Hannah Pakula!
It's all about power December 31, 2009
Elena S. Danielson
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Even though Hannah Pakula is not a specialist in Chinese history, she sticks closely to the sources on Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and uses those sources skillfully and skeptically. Pakula is not trying to write a history of China; she is apparently after something else. The book provides enough background on the conditions in early 20th century China to make it clear that a person of high morals and great integrity would not last long in such a corrupt and chaotic environment as the warlord era. Given that background, what is interesting is not whether Mai-ling Soong is honest, but how she plays her hand once she marries Chiang Kai-shek. She has wealth, intelligence, and beauty. But even a wealthy, intelligent, beautiful woman could not rise to power in either China or the U.S. at that time. Perhaps not even now. Mai-ling finds her place as an intermediary at the intersection of two nations that desperately need and thoroughly misunderstand each other. She became a persuasive public speaker on behalf of China, speaking before the U.S. Congress at a time when a woman would ordinarily not be welcome. She secured huge amounts of American money for her people. That the KMT did not use the money the way Americans intended it to be used should not surprise anyone. That Madame CKS got the money at all is the interesting fact, and how she did it is a lesson in power. Bismarck would have understood.
Soong Mai-ling was a woman of great courage. January 10, 2010
Robert J. Scheppy (Zhu Hai, China)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a well researched and interesting story of Madame Chiang Kai-shek. The story also includes biographical background on her sisters Soong Ching-ling and Soong Ai-ling, her brother T. V Soong, Chiang Kai-shek, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and a few others.
Accurate information in China can be difficult to determine. It is sometimes a mix of gossip, rumors, and lies. Believe me, I lived in China 10 years. Nevertheless, I think Hannah Pakula has brought us some good history. I think her insights into Chinese culture are accurate.
"I think that if I had my way, I could amount to something." February 20, 2010
S. McGee (New York, NY)
So wrote Mei-ling Soong, youngest daughter of Chinese millionaire tycoon Charlie Soong, to an American friend, around 1919. By 1942, she had transformed herself into the first lady of China, a political and social powerhouse, and one of the world's most admired women, lionized as she toured the United States pleading for support for her husband's beleagured regime, cut off from the rest of the world in the city of Chungking. Much later in life, an observer would describe her multi-faceted personality -- Wellesley alumna, hard-boiled politician, lady patriot, Georgia belle and haughty empress. Biographer Hannah Pakula set out to describe and capture all those parts of Mme Chiang Kai-shek in this massive but often ponderous biography.
The result is not a fast or straightforward read, as Pakula's book -- the product of a decade of research, is long and dense, jam-packed with details of Chinese politics -- requires patience to peruse. At the end of it, while Mme Chiang still feels like an enigma to me, I do feel that at least I emerged with a much clearer understanding of the forces that shaped her and those around her -- and thus China itself.
Pakula does an excellent job of drawing a portrait of Mme Chiang, as one of the only people in Chiang Kai-shek's inner circle able to persuade the World War II nationalist Chinese leader to behave in a rational fashion, at least some of the time; as a humanitarian in a very un-Chinese tradition, founding orphanages and hospitals; as a member of a family that included some of China's most greedy and rapacious citizens. (As Pakula writes, "There is little question that May-ling, her sisters, brothers, and their spouses conducted themselves much like the Chinese dynasties that had preceded them, making important decisions for the country and making sure that those decisions were financially beneficial to their family.") Certainly, in many ways Mme Chiang did present herself like a Manchu empress. During her famous wartime trip to the United States, pleading for financial aid for China's orphans and weapons to fight off the Chinese, Pakula recounts Mme Chiang wearing traditional Chinese gowns fastened with diamonds, and traveling with an array of luxurious fur coats.
Pakula's approach to her difficult and elusive subject -- a woman who once unplugged the power cord on a reporter's tape recorder without him knowing -- is straightforward and chronological. As a result, the book is stuffed full of detail, starting with Mme Chiang's American education (which produced the Georgia belle accent she deployed to great effect whenever she needed to charm a foreign statesman) to her marriage and the battle to save her husband's regime from the dual threat of the invading Japanese and the Chinese Communists. At times, the narrative becomes exhausting to read -- I felt as if I was on some kind of "Long March" myself, with the words "The End" as my objective rather than the caves of Yenan. Too often, I think, the biography lost its focus and ended up feeling more of a history of China and Mme Chiang's role in it, than a biography. Leaving aside the other merits or flaws of the controversial biography of Mao by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, I found that to be a much more fluid and compelling narrative, in terms of the writing, structure and choices of what to include or discard. I turned the pages of that book rapidly; this one became easy to put down for long spells.
Unbelievably, this book, vast and all-encompassing as it is, left me hungry for more, or at least, a tighter focus and greater analysis. I wanted fewer detailed analyses of the political spats within the Kuomintang and more emphasis on Mme Chiang herself; as the book unfolded, she simply became more enigmatic. Were her repeated health crises psychosomatic, invented or very real? Pakula hints at all three answers, but never really comes down on any side. What motivated the marriage and how did the relationship between husband and wife evolve? Again, Pakula ducks the core question, and instead discusses Mme Chiang's romance with Wendell Wilkie, her husband's philandering, etc. Ultimately, the portrait Pakula produces, while swarming with details and information, wasn't a revelatory one. Who was Mme Chiang and what motivated her -- greed? a desire for power? patriotism? idealism? More than 800 pages later, I'm still puzzled, but perhaps that has more to do with the subject of the book than Pakula as a biographer.
Certainly, Pakula's traditionalist and chronological approach to a biography has produced a worthy and well-researched volume that's likely to become a 'must read' biography for anyone interested in the first half of the 20th century, as China lurched from empire, to nationalist country, to a country divided by warlords and invaders, to one run by a Communist totalitarian regime. It's full of the wonderful bits of color that make all good biographies stand out, from the horrifying details of abuses practiced by all the different rulers of China (torture by the emperors, the murder of civilians by the Japanese, such as the notorious 'Rape of Nanking', and the Chiang regime's abuse of its opponents, as when Pakula tells of mass murders in the streets of Shanghai in the regime's final days, or the disembowling of a young woman in Hankow for saying publicly that Chiang wasn't the real heir to revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen) to the small details of wartime life in Chungking.
I'm glad I read this; I doubt I'll have the courage to wade through it again, but I'll keep it on my shelves should I ever need a reference book about this era. Recommended primarily to those with a strong interest in China, or who are interested in the Asian theater of World War II -- there is a lot of discussion about China's role (and inadequacies), and Chiang's relationship with both wartime political leaders and military figures from Stilwell to George Marshall.
A note to Kindle readers: This is one book, despite its heft, that might be worth buying in "real book" version. There are no photos in the Kindle version; the maps (which would be helpful) are too small to be legible on the K2; a crucial "who's who" at the front of this book is awkward to get to (when it should be readily accessible, given the number of characters who will be new to many readers), and the footnotes and bibliography also weren't as easily accessed as in many other Kindle books I've read. A final killer: there's no Table of Contents in the menu, making it more cumbersome to navigate from point to point. (You have to manually page back through the whole who's who to reach the table of contents.)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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