History in Three Keys - The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (Hardcover, New)

In this long-awaited book, Paul Cohen examines the craft of historiography against the backdrop of a crucial event in modern Chinese history. The Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, an outcry against foreigners led by a group largely comprised of poor farmworkers, soon became a kind of cultural mythology for both sides, and the Boxers themselves became alternately patriots or xenophobes, heroes or fanatics.