The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China Paperback – Import, 16 November 2010

A well researched and written book. Soong Mei-ling's was a powerful woman, the one behind the throne, without her, Chiang Kia-shek might not have achieved as much as he did. On the other hand, the Soong family was a completely corrupted and self serving lot which the book hardly mentioned.

excellent book

Fascinating!

購入したものの、800ページ超えはなかなか、手に取る気になれずでしたが、台北旅行（当然、圓山大飯店泊）前に読みました。実際（本文）は700ページ弱で意外に読みやすかったです（歴史好きなら）。美齢の父の生年1866年から彼女の死の2003年までのお話ですが、台湾に渡ってからはページ数が減り、特に1975年以降はわずか21ページしかないのは物たりませんでした。清末に生まれ10才でアメリカ留学（二つの女子大で学び）権力者と結婚して、夫の通訳として数々の歴史的会見に同席、日中戦争中から、資金集めのためアメリカで頻繁に（単独）公演、など光の部分と　旧弊な中国の富裕層そのものの生活、アメリカからの援助を私物化した（一族で）影の部分。三姉妹の長女、アイリンやその夫（孔子の末裔）、兄のT.V .Soongなどのお話も興味深いです。

I strongly suspect that the wealthy Kung and Soong descendants in the States liked the author’s published biographies of two European royal women and asked her to write this tome to honor the “royal” member in their family tree. Rationale: the author didn’t explain why she chose this project even though she had no background in Chinese history and language. The book quoted a wealth of Chinese sources in its 10-page long bibliography but the author only dryly acknowledged an anonymous Chinese researcher and translator in one short sentence.p.s. Apologies. My above suspicion was incorrect. The book’s views on The Old Chiang, Mei-Ling’s husband, are totally negative, which are different to what she felt about him. Still, the author’s motivation remains puzzling. As another reviewer pointed out, while the author quoted a lot of Chinese books, it doesn’t appear that she had actually read them and understood the subject matters.