A concise history of an uprising that took down a three-hundred-year-old dynasty and united the great powers. The year is 1900, and Western empires are locked in entanglements across the globe. The British are losing a bitter war against the Boers while the German kaiser is busy building a vast new navy. The United States is struggling to put down an insurgency in the South Pacific while the upstart imperialist Japan begins to make clear to neighboring Russia its territorial ambition. In China, a perennial pawn in the Great Game, a mysterious group of superstitious peasants is launching attacks on the Western powers they fear are corrupting their country. These ordinary Chinese—called Boxers by the West because of their martial arts showmanship—rise up seemingly out of nowhere. Foreshadowing the insurgencies of our recent past, they lack a centralized leadership and instead tap into latent nationalism and deep economic frustration to build their army. Many scholars brush off the Boxer Rebellion as an ill-conceived and easily defeated revolt, but in The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, the military historian David J. Silbey shows just how close the Boxers came to beating back the combined might of the imperial powers. Drawing on the diaries and letters of allied soldiers and diplomats, he paints a vivid portrait of the war. Although their cause ended just as quickly as it began, the Boxers would inspire Chinese nationalists—including a young Mao Zedong—for decades to come.

"Wales and its Boxers charts the emergence on a world stage of a nation of fighters, from bareknuckle mountain fighting to title fights watched by audiences around the world." "The identification of sport and society has always been a central concern in Wales. In a series of fascinating essays, Wales and its Boxers traces the way in which great fighters have shaped and then reflected a national consciousness over decades, bringing the discussion up to date as present and now-emerging generations of fighters carry forward a clearly undiminished enthusiasm for the sport in Wales - led inevitably by Joe Calzaghe, perhaps the best British boxer of the modern era." --Book Jacket.

Part Two explores the thought, feelings, and behavior of the direct participants in the Boxer experience, individuals who, without a preconceived idea of the entire event, understood what was happening to them in a manner fundamentally different from historians.

In 1900, China chose to take on imperialism by fighting a war with the world on the parched north China plain. This multi-disciplinary volume explores the causes behind what is now known as the Boxer war, examining its particular cruelties and its impact on China, foreign imperialism in China, and on the foreign imagination. The Boxers have often been represented as a force from China's past, resisting an enforced modernity. Here, expert contributors argue that this rebellion was instead a wholly modern resistance to globalizing power, representing new trends in modern China and in international relations. This volume will appeal to readers interested in modern Chinese, East Asian, and European history as well as the history of imperialism, colonialism, warfare, missionary work, and Christianity.

"Describes the history, physical features, temperament, and care of the boxer breed"--Provided by publisher.