Book description
Entertaining and masterly biography of Madame Chiang Kai-shek
(1897-2003). Beautiful, powerful and sexy, Madame Chiang Kai-shek was at
the centre of one of the great dramas of the twentieth century: the
founding of modern China, beginning with a revolution that swept away
more than 2,000 years of monarchy, followed by the Second World War and
ending in eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taipei. An epic
historical tapestry, this beautifully wrought narrative revolves around
a fascinating, manipulative woman and her family: her father, a peasant
who raised himself into Shanghai society and sent his daughters to
college in America at a time when Chinese women were purposefully kept
uneducated; her mother, an unlikely aristocratic Methodist from the
Mandarin class; her husband, a dogmatic warlord who became Generalissimo
of China; one sister, the wife of Sun Yat-sen; the other, married to the
seventy-fifth lineal descendant of Confucius; and her older brother, a
financial genius. This family, along with their partners in marriage,
was largely responsible for dragging China into the modern world. Soong
May-ling, or Madame Chiang as she was known, who died in 2003 at the age
of 106, is uniquely positioned at the heart of this story. As her
husband came to represent the hopes of the West in the East, she acted
as his adviser, English translator, secretary, and most loyal champion,
finding herself on the world stage with Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston
Churchill. A savvy politician, she remained a popular if controversial
figure both at home and abroad. Hannah Pakula brilliantly narrates the
life of this extraordinary woman - how she charmed the United States out
of billions of dollars while remaining dedicated to her China, and how
she managed to influence if not change the history of the twentieth
century.
