The World of Wu Zhao

This annotated translation of Zhang Zhuo’s collection of miscellany, Court and Country, offers a lively, folksy, and novel perspective on the empire of Wu Zhao, China’s first and only female emperor, that will amuse and shock readers, prompting them to recalibrate everything they think they know about medieval China. The World of Wu Zhao includes separate chapters on a number of different themes and topics: Buddhist and Daoist monks, the female emperor’s male favorites (who dressed up in rainbow