It has been a while since we've had a court-centric study of the late Qing. This book, a revised version of the author's dissertation at Princeton, examines the education of the dynasty's last three emperors. These three emperors—Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Xuantong—all ascended to the throne before the age of six. The author asks, “What were the texts, who were the teachers, and what were the lessons that were important for the young emperors to learn?” (169). Three different political and social groups offered three contending answers. One “fought to preserve the Manchu core” of the dynastic tradition (the Manchu language, horsemanship, and archery), another “argued for the primacy of Confucian texts,” and the third advocated “the knowledge and practices of the Western world” (35).
Because of their young age, all three of the emperors required a regency. In the case of the first two, the regent was, of course, Cixi....
