In the summer of 1900, bands of peasant youths from the villages of north China streamed into Beijing to besiege the foreign legations, attracting the attention of the entire world. Joseph Esherick reconstructs the early history of the Boxers, challenging the traditional view that they grew from earlier anti-dynastic sects, and stressing instead the impact of social ecology and popular culture.

A concise history of an uprising that took down a three-hundred-year-old dynasty and united the great powers. The year is 1900, and Western empires are locked in entanglements across the globe. The British are losing a bitter war against the Boers while the German kaiser is busy building a vast new navy. The United States is struggling to put down an insurgency in the South Pacific while the upstart imperialist Japan begins to make clear to neighboring Russia its territorial ambition. In China, a perennial pawn in the Great Game, a mysterious group of superstitious peasants is launching attacks on the Western powers they fear are corrupting their country. These ordinary Chinese—called Boxers by the West because of their martial arts showmanship—rise up seemingly out of nowhere. Foreshadowing the insurgencies of our recent past, they lack a centralized leadership and instead tap into latent nationalism and deep economic frustration to build their army. Many scholars brush off the Boxer Rebellion as an ill-conceived and easily defeated revolt, but in The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, the military historian David J. Silbey shows just how close the Boxers came to beating back the combined might of the imperial powers. Drawing on the diaries and letters of allied soldiers and diplomats, he paints a vivid portrait of the war. Although their cause ended just as quickly as it began, the Boxers would inspire Chinese nationalists—including a young Mao Zedong—for decades to come.

This is the first book to provide a panoramic view of the origins of the Boxer War. Comprehensively examining this historical conundrum of the 20th century from a detached perspective, the book is based on ten years of exhaustive research of both unpublished and published materials from all nine countries involved. Analysing the misunderstanding between the Chinese and foreign governments of the day, Lanxin Xiang debunks the traditional view that the anti-foreign Empress Dowager of the Chinese Empire was chiefly responsible for this catastrophic episode which altered the course of 20th century China's relationship with the west.

This is the first book to provide a panoramic view of the origins of the Boxer War. Comprehensively examining this historical conundrum of the 20th century from a detached perspective, the book is based on ten years of exhaustive research of both unpublished and published materials from all nine countries involved. Analysing the misunderstanding between the Chinese and foreign governments of the day, Lanxin Xiang debunks the traditional view that the anti-foreign Empress Dowager of the Chinese Empire was chiefly responsible for this catastrophic episode which altered the course of 20th century China's relationship with the west.

In 1900, China chose to take on imperialism by fighting a war with the world on the parched north China plain. This multidisciplinary volume explores the causes behind what is now known as the Boxer War, examining its particular cruelties and its impact on China, foreign imperialism in China, and on the foreign imagination. This war introduced the world to the "Boxers," the seemingly fanatical, violent xenophobes who, believing themselves invulnerable to foreign bullets, died in their thousands in front of foreign guns. But 1900 also saw the imperialism of the 1890s checked and the Qing rulers of China move to embark on a series of shattering reforms. The Boxers have often been represented as a force from China's past, resisting an enforced modernity. Here, expert contributors argue that this rebellion was instead a wholly modern resistance to globalizing power, representing new trends in modern China and in international relations. The allied invasion of north China in late summer 1900 was the first multinational intervention in the name of "civilization," with the issues and attendant problems that have become all too familiar in the early twenty-first century. Indeed, understanding the Boxer rising and the Boxer war remains a pressing contemporary issue. This volume will appeal to readers interested in modern Chinese, East Asian, and European history as well as the history of imperialism, colonialism, warfare, missionary work, and Christianity. Contributions by: C. A. Bayly, Lewis Bernstein, Robert Bickers, Paul A. Cohen, Henrietta Harrison, James L. Hevia, Ben Middleton, T. G. Otte, Roger R. Thompson, R. G. Tiedemann, and Anand A. Yang.

Beleaguered in Pekin: The Boxer's War Against the Foreigner is a work by Robert Coltman. It depicts the Siege of the Legations Quarter during the Boxer Rebellion and the tragic heroism amongst the fighters.

Discover the remarkable history of the Boxer Rebellion... The Boxer Rebellion saw impoverished Chinese peasants strike a blow against the Western powers, particularly the British, who had come to challenge China's sovereignty. The uprising was both a harbinger of things to come for China and a by-product of simmering decades of friction between the Chinese and the British. The Chinese had been able to call the shots during the initial engagement of trade with the West but lost control after the British began smuggling opium into the country. What was a lucrative product for British trade was devastating to the Chinese as addiction began to take its toll on the population. The British fought and won the Opium Wars, and with the victory came trade advantages that eroded China's autonomy. By the late 1800s, humiliated by Chinese military defeats, enraged by the encroachment of Christian missionaries, and alarmed at the role that Western influence played in China's politics, a group of rebels known as the Boxers, so-named because of their emphasis on physical fitness and the martial arts, rose up against the foreign enemy and set the stage for cataclysmic changes to come in China's history. Discover a plethora of topics such as Trade with the Mighty Middle Kingdom The Opium Wars The Self-Strengthening Movement Rise of the Boxers The Fight for Beijing The Legacy of the Boxer Rebellion And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on the Boxer Rebellion, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!