Why read The Talented Women of the Zhang Family?

Book cover of The Talented Women of the Zhang Family

Book description

The history of China in the nineteenth century usually features men as the dominant figures in a chronicle of warfare, rebellion, and dynastic decline. This book challenges that model and provides a different account of the era, history as seen through the eyes of women. Basing her remarkable study on…

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Asian history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Talented Women of the Zhang Family as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Henrietta Harrison

Author

I loved this book because the story of the Zhang family brings the history of the Qing dynasty alive as real women experienced it. Qing dynasty people can seem very different from us, and it’s often hard to get a sense of their characters, but Mann does this by taking us right into their homes and making this a story of the three women who were also writers, poets, and teachers.

We hear about their studies, their loves, and their families’ grief when they died, and just when we’ve really got to know them, we find that they were also…

From Henrietta's list on Qing Dynasty China from an Oxford historian.