Death Throes of a Dynasty: Letters and Diaries of Charles and Bessie Ewing, Missionaries to China - Hardcover

9780873384148: Death Throes of a Dynasty: Letters and Diaries of Charles and Bessie Ewing, Missionaries to China

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873384148 ISBN 13: 9780873384148

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 1990

The letters of Charles and Bessie Ewing provide eyewitness accounts of the social upheaval and warfare that shook turn-of-the-century China. In addition to discussing their missionary activities in the villages of North China and their struggle to master the Chinese Mandarin dialect, the Ewings describe the impact of Western culture upon the social structure of Imperial China as they lived it. Ruoff sets the larger scene about which the Ewings wrote: The Sino-Japanese war, the extraterritorial treaties, the Boxer Uprising , the foreign military interventions, the belated effort to modernize by the Manchu dynasty, the struggle against opium addiction, the student political movement, and the beginning of the Chinese Revolution. We also learn about the last great empress of China, Tzu His, and the last emperor, the child Pu Yi. Through the Ewing correspondence and his own narrative, Ruoff shows the parallel between the attitude toward the Chinese held by the foreign community in the 1890s and the equally restricted outlook the Chinese held of their land and themselves. But just as the views held by the young Congregationalist minister Ewing change during his nearly two decades of service in China, so also the views of the Chinese themselves undergo vast changes. This book then is both a compelling history of a period in modern China and the story of an American family living that history.

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About the Author:

Evelyn Helmick Hively has been professor of English, director of American Studies, academic dean, and vice president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. She is the author of Willa Cather's Novel Cycle and A Private Madness: The Genius of Elinor Wylie (The Kent State University Press, 2003) and the editor of Selected Works of Elinor Wylie (The Kent State University Press, 2005).

From Library Journal:

Sent to China as missionaries in 1894, the newlywed Ewings spent 19 years there; Charles's letters and Bessie's diaries provide a fascinating foreigners' view of the events and personalities of the period, which encompassed the end of the empire and the beginning of the republic. Husband and wife were both well educated, articulate writers, and although much of their attention is focused on the details of "God's work," they also describe the political turbulence they witnessed: Bessie's account of life under siege in Peking during the Boxer Uprising is especially riveting. The readability and value of the book is enhanced by the editor, who has provided a wealth of informative notes and four introductory chapters. Recommended for both informed general readers and China specialists.
- John H. Boyle, California State Univ., Chico
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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