The Forbidden City in Beijing, founded in 1405, is one of the greatest palaces in the world: a magnificent complex of residences, temples and courts, the sacred centre of the Chinese empire, under the Ming and Manchu dynasties, for five hundred years.

Despite great political upheaval and social change in the rest of China, the life of rigid protocol and ritual in the Forbidden City remained unaltered, seemingly frozen in time, until the day when the modern world entered its long-closed gates and changed it for ever.

This beautifully illustrated pocket-book tells the story of this remarkable complex of buildings across five hundred years.