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.

Joseph Esherick is Professor of History, University of Oregon, and author of Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (California, 1976).

"With this outstanding volume, Joseph Esherick has repaired one of the most glaring omissions in the scholarly canon. . . . [A] solid and provocative inquiry into this critically important event."—William T. Rowe, Journal of Asian History

"Joseph Esherick has succeeded . . . in both describing and analyzing the Boxer movement in a much more complete and satisfactory manner than anyone else."—David D. Buck, The Historian

"A superbly researched book. . . . Not only do we get the Chinese (and Boxer) side of the story for the first time, we also get a much more complex view of the relations between the foreign powers, the missionaries and the Chinese court during the last years of the 19th century."—Prasenjit Duara, International History Review

Winner of the 1987 John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History, awarded by the American Historical Association.
Joseph Levenson Prize, The Association for Asian Studies
The Berkeley Prize, Center for Chinese Studies and Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley