Author: Robert Bickers File Type: mobi In 1900, China chose to take on imperialism by fighting a war with the world on the parched north China plain. This multidisciplinary 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. This war introduced the world to the Boxers, the seemingly fanatical, violent xenophobes who, believing themselves invulnerable to foreign bullets, died in their thousands in front of foreign guns. But 1900 also saw the imperialism of the 1890s checked and the Qing rulers of China move to embark on a series of shattering reforms. The Boxers have often been represented as a force from Chinas 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. The allied invasion of north China in late summer 1900 was the first multinational intervention in the name of civilization, with the issues and attendant problems that have become all too familiar in the early twenty-first century. Indeed, understanding the Boxer rising and the Boxer war remains a pressing contemporary issue. 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. Contributions by C. A. Bayly, Lewis Bernstein, Robert Bickers, Paul A. Cohen, Henrietta Harrison, James L. Hevia, Ben Middleton, T. G. Otte, Roger R. Thompson, R. G. Tiedemann, and Anand A. Yang. **Review This is an important book, representing the latest state of the art on the subject. (The China Journal) A brilliant account. (China Quarterly) Several chapters will be of particular interest to specialists of colonial and imperial history. . . . These chapters, like the others in this excellent book, show that a myriad of forces, traditional and modern, local and international, came into play in that long, dry summer of 1900. (Journal Of Colonialism and Colonial History) This book sheds fascinating new light on many hitherto-ignored aspects of the Chinese anti-Christian insurgents known as the Boxers. Equally important, though, especially in our own troubled times, is the attention that contributors pay to the actions of foreign participants in the Boxer crisis, including the consortium of foreign troops marching under eight different flags that lifted the siege of Beijingand then quickly squandered its claim to the moral high ground by looting Chinese national treasures and carrying out brutal campaigns of reprisal. The Boxers, China, and the World is a highly original work of scholarship that provides readers with a fittingly international and surprisingly topical lens through which to view the traumatic events of 1900. (Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, University of California, Irvine author of Chinas Brave New WorldAnd Other Tales for Global Times) The essays in this volume range from detailed explorations of the sources of this violence to broader inquiries into its global consequences, including pan-Asian sympathies in India, widespread criticism of foreign looting in the Western and Japanese press, and a common understanding that indiscriminate retribution against people resisting alien intrusions can be counterproductive. This book is of great value to students of Chinese and world history and to anyone inclined to think about historys lessons for the contemporary world. (Joseph W. Esherick, University of California, San Diego) About the Author Robert Bickers is professor of history at the University of Bristol and co-director of the British Inter-University China Centre. R. G. Tiedemann is senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in China, Kings College London.

Author: Ivan Kuvačić File Type: pdf

Author: Donald A. Crosby File Type: pdf It is sometimes thought that individual religious faith should be firmly fixed in the traditions of the past. That once it is established in someones life, it should remain steadfast and unchanging throughout personal, cultural, or any other changes. This book subverts that idea by showing how it is actually ongoing inquiry, examination, and indeed change, requiring similarly ongoing acts of informed and responsible freedom, that will produce a dynamic and meaningful faith. Contending that religious faith should readily encompass deliberate and ongoing acts of personal freedom, the text outlines various ways in which these dual aspects are more ally than enemy. It also demonstrates how the ongoing free choices that are required for genuine faith are not absolute, but are in fact contextualized and conditioned by genetic makeup, environmental conditioning, and present character traits produced in part by a persons past choices. Despite this caveat, personal freedom is presented as genuine and real, with a vitally important role to play in a persons religiosity. The book concludes with some observations of this process in practice in the authors own journey from a Christian theist worldview to that of a religious naturalist. This is a fascinating treatise on the role of personal freedom in religious faith. It will, therefore, be of significant interest to scholars of religion, theology, philosophy of religion and religious naturalism. **About the Author Donald A. Crosby is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Colorado State University, USA.

Author: Malcolm Rowat File Type: pdf Reveals the importance of Richard Strauss operatic compositions rather than only his instrumentals by giving detailed analysis of how and why they were composed. The main purpose of this volume is to provide an overview to all of Richard Strauss musical and operatic compositions. Usually the operas are ignored by scholars and composers who only perform his instrumental works. This book shows that there is incredible musical value in the operas as well. It also showcases his compositional style and techniques, as the author states, Strauss could compose while riding on a noisy train, he was just that talented.**