History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth

by Paul Cohen

Overview

A comprehensive look at the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, a bloody uprising in north China against native Christians and foreign missionaries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231106511
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	03/11/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	428
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul A. Cohen is Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies and History at Wellesley College and an associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University. His publications include the award-winning Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (Columbia).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. The Boxers as Event
Prologue: The Historically Reconstructed Past
1. The Boxer Uprising: A Narrative History
Part 2: The Boxers as Experience
Prologue: The Experience Past
2. Drought and the Foreign Presence
3. Mass Spirit Possession
4. Magic and Female Pollution
5. Rumor and Rumor Panic
6. Death
Part 3: The Boxers as Myth
Prologue: The Mythologized Past
7. The New Culture Movement and the Boxers
8. Anti-Imperialism and the Recasting of the Boxer Myth
9. The Cultural Revolution and the Boxers
Conclusion
Abbreciations
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Spence

Cohen pares the overlays of historical accounts of the Boxers down to their constituent parts as myth and lived experience. The book is eminently readable, ideally suited both to the general reader and to the college teacher seeking to deepen students'understanding of the currents in modern Chinese history.

— Jonathan Spence, Yale University

Editorial Reviews

An extraordinary book. It is breathtaking, bold in concept, innovative in methodology, provocative at times, and eminently readable.

Asian Studies Review - Edmund S. K. Fung

The most adventurous writing on modern Chinese history currently available.

History

An extraordinary book. It is breathtaking, bold in concept, innovative in methodology, provocative at times, and eminently readable.

— Edmund S. K. Fung

Asian Studies Review

History in Three Keys is an extraordinary book. It is breathtaking, bold in concept, innovative in methodology, provocative at times, and eminently readable.

Edmund S. K. Fung

Cohen pares the overlays of historical accounts of the Boxers down to their constituent parts as myth and lived experience. The book is eminently readable, ideally suited both to the general reader and to the college teacher seeking to deepen students´ understanding of the currents in modern Chinese history.

Jonathan Spence

Cohen offers excellent insight into the idiosyncratics of the Boxer movement, including its ideas, origins, rituals, and development.... Highly recommended.

Library Journal