to many reviewers of [Mao: The Unknown Story], the story told therein is unknown because Chang and Halliday substantially fabricated it or exaggerated it into existence." Empress Dowager Cixi In October 2013, Chang published a biography of Empress Dowager Cixi, who led China from 1861 until her death in 1908. Chang argues that Cixi has been "deemed either tyrannical and vicious, or hopelessly incompetent—or both," and that this view is both simplistic and inaccurate. Chang portrays her as intelligent, open-minded, and a proto-feminist limited by a xenophobic and deeply conservative imperial bureaucracy. Although Cixi is often accused of reactionary conservatism (especially for her treatment of the Guangxu Emperor during and after the Hundred Days' Reform), Chang argues that Cixi actually started the Reforms and "brought medieval China into the modern age." Newspaper reviews have also been positive in their assessment. Te-Ping Chen, writing in the Wall Street Journal, found the book "packed with details that bring to life its central character." Simon Sebag Montefiore writes: "Filled with new revelations, it’s a gripping and surprising story of an extraordinary woman in power. Using Chinese sources, totally untapped by western books, this reappraises one of the great monstresses of modern history… Jung Chang’s revisionism means that this book reveals a new and different woman: ambitious, sometimes murderous, but pragmatic and unique. All of this adds up to make Empress Dowager Cixi a powerful read." The New York Times named it one of its 'Notable Books of the Year'. The book received critical treatment in the academic world. The Qing dynasty specialist Pamela Kyle Crossley wrote a skeptical review in the London Review of Books. "Chang has made impressive use of the rapidly expanding range of published material from the imperial archives. But understanding these sources requires profound study of the context. [...] Her claims regarding Cixi’s importance seem to be minted from her own musings, and have little to do with what we know was actually going in China. I am as eager as anyone to see more attention paid to women of historical significance. But rewriting Cixi as Catherine the Great or Margaret Thatcher is a poor bargain: the gain of an illusory icon at the expense of historical sense." List of works Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Madame Sun Yat-sen: Soong Ching-ling (London, 1986); Penguin, Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London, 1992); 2004 Harper Perennial ed. Jung