The Last Empress Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China

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 eventual loss to the Communists and exile in Taipei. Praised by China scholar Jonathan Spence for "an impressive amount of telling material, drawn from a wide array of sources," Pakula presents an epic historical tapestry, a wonderfully wrought narrative that brings to life what Americans should know about Chinathe superpower we are inextricably linked with.

Hannah Pakula is the author of The Last Empress, which was a New York Times notable book, The Last Romantic, which was called by Graham Greene the best biography and one of the three best books of the year, and An Uncommon Woman, which was a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist. She lives in New York City.