This is the second volume of McMahon’s meticulous work on the history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. (The first was Women Shall Not Rule, 2013). Avoiding the stereotype of imperial wives as victims in royal polygamy, the author focuses on these celestial women’s active participation in palace life after the dethronement of Empress Wu in the Tang dynasty. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics became severe, McMahon argues that later dynasties still included strong, active women who counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, and oversaw succession when they died. Dowager Empress Cixi, the last great monarch before Republican China, was an example. Following the dynastic chronology, the book offers detailed accounts from various sources, such as legend, anecdotes, official histories, and miscellanea. It also provides comparative perspectives from monogamous European kings and royal women in Byzantium, Mongol and Timurid Central Asia, and Mughal India. . . .Summing Up: Recommended. General collections; upper-division undergraduates and above.