The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China: A History by David J. Silbey is a brisk account of the uprising by Chinese troops and the mystical/quasi-military movement of the Boxers in 1900.
Silbey provides us with an overview of the conflict, mainly from the western perspective. What amazes me is how colonial powers at odds with each other could combine in their military efforts to defeat this Chinese rebellion. Japan, England, the United States, Britain, Germany and Russia would fight each other in various combinations for the rest of the twentieth century. Defeating China however was a common cause.
The sheer brutality of the allied armies also is a shock. The Chinese remember this conflict, while it is convenient for us to forget.
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