The empress dowager probably directed the photographer, not the other way around. Archivist Hogge says she may have taken the camera-friendly Queen Victoria as her role model. Sean Callahan ...

Stephanie Balkwill, University of California, Los Angeles (THE CONVERSATION) In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei.

"Empress Dowager Cixi is a fascinating figure because she represents a contradiction — she wielded immense power in a world that sought to diminish women's authority," says the artist.

She challenges the conventional view of the Dowager Empress as a deeply conservative and cruel despot. Chang joined Woman's Hour on Radio 4 in September 1995 to discuss her best-selling ...

(The Conversation) — In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei. Historians do not know her birth name or in what year ...