The Soong Dynasty

Thoroughly researched, a real page-turner on a topic of great importance. Top notch!

The Soong family is a wonderful key hole through which to observe US-China relations from 1880 to 1950 or so. One Soong sister married Sun Yat-sen, one married Chiang Kai-shek. It's definitely a case of truth being stranger than fiction. Sun Yat-sen was a bumbler, Chiang Kai-shek was a schemer. Between the unplanned catastrophes and the planned catastrophes, how anybody survives seems almost a miracle.

The truly frightening part is how the behavior patterns in this book resemble our times these days. Politics and corruption are pretty much the same in all times and places. The gruesome details uncovered in this book would have been known by very few show more people on the actual scene. Ach, though I remember in the early 1980s when repression was alive and well in Taiwan. I remember a Taiwanese professor getting thrown off a balcony in Pittsburgh - the long arm of the KMT secret police. But how vast money flows into vast propaganda.... what goes on now, with the internet and social media.... this insanity is not just a thing of the past! show less

Very well written. Disturbing piece of history to read. The level of corruption is astonishing, and shameful.

There were many things I liked about this book, and a few that I did not, and it all adds up to a decent rating. I rate this book 3.5, not 4 stars. It's better than a 3 in my opinion, but just is not quite a 4. Having read 'Dragon Lady' by this very same author and finding it very well-written and researched, I have to say that I found this book to be somewhat disappointing. It was not quite the same caliber as 'Dragon Lady', since this book has more speculation, and actually says negative things about Tzu Hsi/Cixi even though in 'Dragon Lady' such suggestions are shot down.

This book was a long one, and I found some parts plodding. However, it gave me a good overview on Chinese history and what happened between the KMTs and the show more Communists. Having read several historical Chinese novels set through various times and ages (Empress Orchid, the Last Empress, Peony in Love among others, as well as biographies and auto-biographies (Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah, Red Azalea by Anchee Min), I can honestly say that the knowledge of Chinese history in here is rather informative, and you will learn a lot about China itself as long as you have the patience to actually read it all. show less

Seagrave writes a comprehensive biography of the Song Sisters: three women who helped shape the destiny of modern China (Meiling, Qingling, and Ailing). However Seagrave also has a clear bias towards Song Chingling and his rather heavy-handed treatment of the other two sisters and their husbands (Chiang Kai-shek and H. H. Kung) shows, and lets down Seagrave's otherwise good writing.

A good read though for an introduction to one of modern China's most powerful political families, though more recent scholarship is probably better for the serious reader's further study.

fantastic read - great feeling for the troubles of china ad a bit of the colonial history that so shaped the nation. also the break away of Taiwan and the nationalists. worth the read.

..."reads like a novel but is much better... It would be hard to find a parallel in modern times to the Soongs and their in-laws, from Sun Yat-sen to Chiang Kai-Shek. for the wide swath they cut in history and their influence, mostly for the worse, on so many hundreds of millions of people. Their story is a major part of modern Chinese history, and an important slice of America history as well. The SOONG DYNASTY is a remendous though tragic story, marvelous told." --Prof. Edwin O Reischauer, Harvard [from the jacket]

Greatest Book.