Wu: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kathleen Li
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7 hr 4 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

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.

About the author

Jonathan Clements is the author of Christ's Samurai: The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion, A Brief History of the Samurai, Modern Japan, Anime: A History, and Prince Saionji Kinmochi. In 2016 he became the presenter of Route Awakening (National Geographic)-a TV series on historical icons of Chinese culture.

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.

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Narrated by Kathleen Li