The Empress Wu Zetian is known as China's only female emperor in China's long history. And though many women have come before and after that were important and influential in their own right, there has only been one to ascend the throne and gain as much political power as her. Wu Zetian ruled with complete and unchallenged authority. However, the moment her power began to Wane and immediately following her death, historians began to criticize her rule predominantly because she was a woman in a traditionally male role. The rule of Wu Zetian's has been viewed as highly controversial, due in no small part to the fact that later historians just took what earlier historians had written without taking into account any bias which might have been motivating them.…show more content… Wu Zhao was the name she had given herself upon taking the Throne of emperor. As time progressed historians were more apt to use her title “Wu Zetian” ( or " Confirming to Heavens") as her name. Rothschild does not dance around the harder aspects of Wu Zhao's rise, but rather gives them substance and explains the how's and why's of her demonization at the hands Chinese historians. He uses primary documents to aid in his explanation of how the court members felt that nature had been flipped upside down as a result of a woman's assumption of a man's authoritative role. Rothschild gives an account of when one of Wu Zhao’s ministers stated that by doing this she was destroying the fabric of reality and requested that she step aside. She had that minister banished to the swamp lands and continued on with her reign. Wu Zhao refused to be controlled by or bend to the traditions men that required women to follow and as she believed that she was the equal to if not the better of anyone in the
