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

Paul A. Cohen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231106505 ISBN 13: 9780231106504

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1998

Synopsis

History in Three Keys juxtaposes the accounts of historians with those of participants and witnesses and sets these perspectives against the range of popular myths that were fashioned about the Boxers. The first part of the book tells the story of the Boxer uprising as reconstructed by historians. 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. Finally, in Part Three, Cohen examines the myths surrounding the uprising in twentieth-century China - and, to a lesser extent, the West - as symbolic representations designed less to elucidate the Boxer past than to draw energy from it in the present.

About this title

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).

From the Back Cover

Historical reconstruction is in constant tension with two other more pervasive and influential ways of "knowing" the past - experience and myth. In this long-awaited book, Paul Cohen uses the Boxer uprising of 1898-1900 - a major antiforeign explosion and watershed event in Chinese history - as a vehicle for the skillful illumination of these tensions. History in Three Keys juxtaposes the accounts of historians with those of participants and witnesses and sets these perspectives against the range of popular myths that were fashioned about the Boxers. The first part of the book tells the story of the Boxer uprising as reconstructed by historians. 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. Finally, in Part Three, Cohen examines the myths surrounding the uprising in twentieth-century China - and, to a lesser extent, the West - as symbolic representations designed less to elucidate the Boxer past than to draw energy from it in the present.

Reviews

Harvard historian Cohen presents a comprehensive and enlightening look at the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, a bloody uprising in north China against native Christians and foreign missionaries. The rebellion resulted in a rescue by eight nations and then the conclusion of a peace treaty. Cohen offers excellent insight into the idiosyncratics of the Boxer movement, including its ideas, origins, rituals, and development. He successfully examines and discusses the uprising in terms of its historical narrative, the participants' experiences, and the literary myths to which it gave rise. Cohen also distinguishes between historians and mythologizers. A specialized, thorough, and well-researched book with good references, this is an excellent complement to Joseph Eshevick's The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Univ. of California, 1987). Highly recommended for large public libraries and the East Asia collection of academic libraries.?Steven Lin, Dallas P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231106505
• ISBN 13: 9780231106504
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 428