A Brief History of the Boxer Rebellion: China's War on Foreigners, 1900 [Paperback]

Given the limited material to draw upon, Preston writes a well-paced and constructed history of the year leading up to and after the events of 1900, using first hand witness material to provide voices from the time. Reading the unthinking racism of some of the more liberal people trapped in the Legations provides an insight into why the Chinese turned against the "foreign devils".

The first part provides an overview of the rampant imperialism on all sides, the way in which scientific theory, such as Darwin, was used to justify both war and racism. There could be a little more on how the foreign imperial powers came to hold concessions in China - there is very little on the Opium Wars or the wars with Tsarist Russia or Imperial Japan. Although a little annoying, this omission is understandable: Preston wants to get to the drama of 1900 as quickly as possible and assumes the reader already has a general knowledge of the area.

The events in Beijing are kept seperate to the story of how the Western relief troops (or Eight-Power Allied Invasion, if you prefer) reached the city. This has the twin advantages of increasing the tension when reading events within the Legations and of preventing a sense that the drama is being lost by presenting events in strictly chronological order. The cathedral gets its own chapter, deliberately reminding the reader that they too - like the foreigners in the Legations and from the relief force - forgot the thousands of converts crammed into church compound.

The book was first published in hardback as "Beseiged in Peking: first hand stories of the Boxer Rebellion", a mouthful of a title which does indicate that this was always going to be a partial account. For all that, it's the most comprehensive popular history books currently in print on the subject and should be enjoyed as an illustration of how imperialism creates the very chaos it believes it is saving the world from.

Having said that I still found this book a delight to read once it got into the actual siege and relief operations. I found the first few chapters a bit slow but after that the narrative just flowed along with some great stories and accounts from the people who experienced this upheaval.

The story was well written and presented and it was easy to stay up into the early morning reading the book. The author supplied a number of maps to assist the reader in following the action and movements of the forces involved. She also supplied a great number of (small) black & white photographs taken at the time.

Some of the stories were excellent and I found some of the personal accounts truly amazing and very interesting. This is a book that may not suit the historian looking for a detailed account of the fighting but I am sure that most people who enjoy history will find this book a treat.

The story of Bishop Auguste Favier and his flock of Christians holding out at Peitang with a small detachment of Italian and French soldiers was great. The stories of what happened to a number of Missionaries and their families in the countryside were told in context to the situation as a whole.

Even though the book presents mainly the Western version of events I found that the author present her story in a fair and impartial manner. What happened to the Chinese Christians was not forgotten in the story but the book does concentrate on the Westerners. The chapter dealing with what happened after the siege was lifted was very illuminating and some facets of the interaction between the different foreign powers were very absorbing. I enjoyed a number of the quotes provided by the author and one that I found amusing was:

"I sent my servant (Chinese) on a message. He was robbed by a Russian, buggered by a Frenchman, killed by a German. In my dismay, I made complaint to a British officer. He looked at me, put his eye-glass into his eye, and said, 'Was he really? What a bore! '".

This is a good yarn, an enjoyable history and a decent story, well worth the effort to sit down and read.