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.
The Origins of the Boxer Uprising
About the Book
Reviews
"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."—International History Review
"A fine example of Chinese provincial history as well as a timely attempt to rethink some of the issues underlying the 1911 revolution."—History
"One of the most stimulating scholarly works of the past decade in Chinese historical studies. It sets high standards of research, analysis and interpretation. Moreover, it will remain for many years not only the standard work on the first part of the Boxer movement, but a model of careful, convincing yet dramatically revisionist history."—American Historical Review
"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."—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."—The Historian
"A challenging revisionist account which provides the most satisfactory insight into the nature of the Boxer phenomenon currently available in the West."—Times Higher Education
Awards
- Joseph Levenson Prize (on 20th Century China), Association for Asian Studies
- The Berkeley Prize (senior scholar), Center for Chinese Studies and the Center for Japanese Studies at UC Berkeley
- 1987 John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History, American Historical Association