Emperor of China

Emperor of China reconstructs the life and government of the Kangxi Emperor from his own surviving words. Spence draws together edicts, memorials, recollections and private observations to present a ruler concerned with military campaigns, flood control, taxation, official conduct, family tensions and the physical demands of governing a vast empire.

The result is not a conventional chronological biography but a carefully shaped self-portrait. Kangxi’s confidence and curiosity sit beside suspicion, grief and the frustrations of age, allowing the institutions of the early Qing court to be seen through the changing voice of the emperor who ruled from 1661 to 1722.