The Boxers, China, and the world

"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." -- Publisher.

"These papers were prepared for a conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, on 22-24 June 2001, on "1900: The Boxers, China, and the World""--Acknowledgments.

Introduction / Robert Bickers -- Village politics and national politics: the Boxer movement in central Shanxi / Henrietta Harrison -- The church militant: armed conflicts between Christians and Boxers in North China / R.G. Tiedemann -- (A) subaltern('s) Boxers: an Indian soldier's account of China and the world in 1900-1901 / Annand A. Yang -- Reporting the Taiyuan Massacre: culture and politics in the China war of 1900 / Roger R. Thompson -- Looting and its discontents: moral discourse and the plunder of Beijing, 1900-1901 / James L. Hevia -- Scandals of empire: the looting of North China and the Japanese public sphere / Ben Middleton -- After the fall: Tianjin under foreign occupation, 1900-1902 / Lewis Bernstein -- The Boxer Uprising and India: globalizing myths / C.A. Bayly -- The Boxer Uprising and British foreign policy: the end of isolation / T.G. Otte -- Humanizing the Boxers / Paul A. Cohen.