The one book to carry with you when you visit the Summer Palace. Lonely Planet's Beijing Guide provides extensive maps and information for getting around Beijing and The Summer Palace. Numerous photographs, maps, and historical background make this guide indispensable.
Amazon price: $11.96

When the British and French invaded Beijing in 1860 during the Second Opium War, they burned and pillaged countless architectural and cultural treasures, including the Summer Palace and the even more magnificent Yuan Ming Yuan. This book provides a rare documentary look at the destruction and an introduction to the use of photography in Beijing in the early 1860s. Includes more than 50 photographs, most of them previously unpublished.
Amazon price: $68

Empress Dowager Cixi (also spelled Tzu Hsi) came to power just one year after the British and French Invasion of Beijing and much of the Summer Palace's subsequent history was centered around her. The author of the Soong Dynasty, Sterling Seagrave, provides a fascinating account of her life while exposing the exaggeration and falsehoods in contemporary British legend which characterized her as a ruthless and wicked concubine who murdered her way to the top.
Amazon price: $12.80