She was called "Little Lantern" because she had been a chubby child. She was a member of one of China's best-known families during a very turbulent period. Sterling Seagrave's best-selling book "The Soong Dynasty" brought to life this close-knit traditional Chinese family, not yet well-known in the West. The Soong family had a big influence on politics during the years during which China moved from the centuries-old dynastic system to that of a democratic and then communist regime. Mayling Soong was known also as the "Belle of Shanghai," the "Generalissimo's Wife," the "Dragon Lady" and the "First Lady of China." She married Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, a man whose life was closely tied to China's history from the early 1900's and Taiwan's history from the time the Nationalist troops were driven to Taiwan following their defeat at the hands of the communists.

"Mayling's peculiar mettle was smelted in America and forged in Shanghai. The woman she became was a seamless alloy of Southern Belle, New England bluestocking, and Chinese tai-tai, or matron," Laura Tyson Li writes in her superb biography of Mayling Soong, whose life spanned the 20th century. She was born in 1898 in China and died in New York in 2003. The Soong family sent their children to study in the United States because they believed that US colleges provided the best education. Mayling came to the US as a young child and stayed on through college, which provided her with the background, knowledge and English language skills that helped her to defend Taiwan and promote anti-communist forces at the height of the Cold War.

Ms. Li, who spent many years doing research for this book, says Mayling was a controversial person. She was married to one of the best-known Chinese army generals who became famous for fighting communism, but she died in obscurity despite her fame. As with most famous biographies, Laura Tyson Li provides detailed information on the life of Mayling and of course the difficult decades of Kuomingtang rule of Taiwan. Mayling early on decided to consider seriously every aspect of her life, from marriage to being the wife of a president, and she exerted great influence on the political decisions her husband made until his death in 1975. With her Western education and good looks, Mayling was very attractive to men in Shanghai and was rumored to have been engaged to various men in 1919 after she returned from years of schooling in the US. Her eldest sister, Eling, married a rich businessman in Shanghai while her second-oldest sister, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen, the father of China's democratic revolution. In the 1920s, the three sisters were struggling to maintain their high profile. Sun Yat-sen in 1919 revived the dormant Geming Dang, or Revolutionary Party, and changed its name to that of Kuomingtang, or Nationalist Party. Growing up in a family with political and societal influence gave Mayling the desire to lead.

In later years in Taipei in the early 1970s when the Kuomingtang government under Chiang Kai-shek struggled to remain in the United Nations after the US switched its support from Taipei to Beijing, Mayling exerted her power in decisions that resulted in Taiwan being moved out of the world organization. When US President Richard Nixon decided to establish diplomatic relations with China and allowed it a seat in the UN, the US wanted to keep Taiwan in the UN General Assembly alongside with China, a situation that would put the two rivals in one organization. Taipei faced a difficult decision and was close to accepting the US proposal to remain in the UN because the Republic of China was one of the original founders of the UN. Chiang and his son, Ching-kuo, were opposed to the compromise and wanted to withdraw from the UN. But other government cabinet officials in Taipei wanted to keep the UN seat and there was no strong position on what to do as Washington pressured the cabinet to accept the compromise. Mayling then intervened, saying that Taiwan should maintain its integrity as a nation and withdraw from the UN. Ms. Li says Mayling's intervention had the effect of galvanizing the position of Taipei not to support a resolution in the UN General Assembly to give seats to both China and Taiwan. Taiwan withdrew from the UN on October 25, 1971.

Mayling kept her determined position in the following months after her country lost the UN seat. Chiang Kai-shek's health was severely declining in 1972. Mayling took over some of the official duties of her husband, including receiving visits by foreign dignitaries. Ms. Li says she became in effect the "spokesman" for the ailing president. Shortly after the death of her husband, Mayling moved back to the US and lived with relatives in New York until her death in 2003.

Ms. Li says the story of Madame Chiang Kai-shek was in the end a tragic one. This was not because of her public life, "but because she failed in the rare opportunity that she was given to transform her country. She began by being part of the solution to China's ills but, sadly, ended up being part of the problem."