History in Three Keys. The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth.

New York.: Columbia University Press.. 1997.. Maps, black and white photographic illustrations, xviii + 428 pages, index, bibliography, glossary, notes, abbreviations, reverse of dustjacket a little marked in two places, very good hardback copy. "The Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, an outcry against foreigners led by a group largely comprised of poor farmworkers, soon became a kind of cultural mythology for both sides, and the Boxers themselves became alternately patriots or xenophobes, heroes or fanatics.

'History in Three Keys' masterfully juxtaposes the accounts of historians with those of the participants and witnesses and sets out these perspectives against the range of popular myths about the Boxers - and in doing so conveys the complexity of the historian's task in integrating these sometimes conflicting perspectives." (Publisher's description). .