Product Description

In the 19th century China was gradually becoming another colony of the European powers which recognised her many riches that were ripe for the picking. From 1860 when Britain went to war with her, until the end of the century, China was constantly at odds with the world powers and her neighbours. By 1897, the Chinese were desperate to remove all foreigners from their land and used the Boxers as a tool for this purpose. Numerous atrocities were committed against foreigners, particularly missionaries, and in the middle of 1900 they tumed their attention on the diplomatic missions in Peking.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #194160 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Peter Harrington runs the photographic collection of the Anne S.K. Brown University Library in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a well respected military writer and is author of a number of works.

Customer Reviews

An excellent overview
There is no doubt that for those who are seriously interested in the events in Peking in 1900 nothing will beat Diana Preston's extraordinary account.

However, this book gives in my opinion an excellent overview of what happened not only in Peking itself, but also in other places, making it a very good account of how troops from so many different nations collaborated together, despite their natural tendency not to trust each other.

There are interesting maps which will delight any wargamer and a very good bibliography if you wish to read more on that topic.

As usual for Chandler's books, it is rather Anglo-centric and tends to glorify the British participation, when in fact it was the Russians, Japanese and Germans that fielded the largest contingents and indeed saw most of the fighting.

Very good book but with less than average colour plates
The book itself is a very good, clear and interesting read. The maps and most of the illustrations are really good too. This is a short book (as all the Osprey Campaings) so it must be clear that this is just an introduction - if you are interested in going deeper you must buy something bigger. But still it is a good quality thing and worth its price. ONE weaker point are colour plates - this fight was artistically full of potential (with so much different armies involved) and sadly, this potential was not fully exploited. Of the three plates the first one is substandard, other two at best average. I do not want to take one full star off the rating for this - but if there was a possibility to take one half, I would do it.

Better off watching the movie "55 days at Peking"
Boring and unispiring read.
Plates could have been nicer.
No idea why Osprey takes up good subjects and just make an average book like this nobody really needs.