Overview

Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 AD) was the only woman to be the sovereign ruler of imperial China. A teenage concubine of the Tang Emperor Taizong, she seduced his son while the emperor lay dying. Recalled from a nunnery as part of an intricate court power-game, she caused the deaths of two lady rivals, before securing her enthronement as the Emperor Gaozong's consort. She ruled in the name of her husband and two eldest sons, presiding over the pinnacle of the Silk Road, before proclaiming herself the founder of a new dynasty. Worshipped as the Sage Mother of Mankind and reviled as the Treacherous Fox, she was deposed aged 79, after angry courtiers murdered her two young lovers. The subject of countless books, plays, and films, Empress Wu remains a feminist icon and a bugbear of Chinese conservatism. Jonathan Clements weighs the evidence of her life and legacy: so charismatic that she could rise from nothing to the height of medieval power, so hated that her own children left her tombstone blank.

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Jonathan Clements is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has written for Euromoney magazine in London and Forbes magazine in New York before joining the Journal, where he worked for eighteen years. He is the author of 48 and Counting and The Little Book of Main Street Money: 21 Simple Truths that Help Real People Make Real Money. Clements was born in London, England, graduated from Emmanuel College, and now lives in New York City. Kathleen Li is an Asian American narrator whose parents are from Taiwan. She has a warm, engaging, and empathetic voice that lends itself equally to YA, fantasy, historical fiction, and self-help audiobooks, as well as to other genres. She has also voiced characters in several audio dramas, including Doctor Who: The Voice of Reason, Seminar, and Pod to Pluto. Kathleen lives in Austin, Texas, where she sometimes slips into a Texas twang. When she's not in her booth narrating, you can find her learning to play violin, doing water aerobics, or cheering on her son's high school marching band.

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