The essays in this volume, prepared for a 2001 conference with the same title at the School of Oriental and African Studies, collectively aim to normalize our understanding of the Boxers and to see both the events and their impacts in local as well as global settings. Collectively, they argue that what is more correctly termed the Boxer War than the Boxer Uprising or the Boxer Rebellion not only represents a watershed in Chinese history, but also provides a window for viewing the changing international arena at the turn of the century in terms of shifts in imperialism and native resistance to it. As Robert Bickers states in the introduction, “[T]he Boxer War was a wholly modern episode and a wholly modern resistance to globalizing power, representing new trends in modern China and in international relations” (p. xii). The essays take this more humanly rational and less exotic approach to...

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