The Last Empress Dowager

The years following the end of the Qing dynasty were some of the most turbulent in Chinese history. With the abdication in 1912 of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, history saw the end of 2,000 of Imperial rule in China and the start of a new era which would prove to be more dramatic and uncertain than anything that had preceded it.

China—the world's oldest continuous civilization—has undergone an astonishing transformation in a brief span of recent history. Since the collapse of its once-glorious empire in 1911, China has seen decades of epic turmoil and upheavals, emerging in the new century as both an authoritarian megastate and an economic powerhouse, poised to become an imposing global force.