The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China

A new book on the Boxers from David Silbey, a military historian for a change rather than a Sinologist…

The year is 1900, and Western empires—both old and new—are locked in regional entanglements across the globe. The British are losing a bitter war against the Boers while the German kaiser is busy building a vast new navy. The United States is struggling to put down an insurgency in the South Pacific while the upstart imperialist Japan begins to make clear to neighboring Russia its territorial ambition. In China, a perennial pawn in the Great Game, a mysterious group of superstitious peasants is launching attacks on the Western powers they fear are corrupting their country. These ordinary Chinese—called Boxers by the West because of their martial arts showmanship—rise up, seemingly out of nowhere. Foreshadowing the insurgencies of the more recent past, they lack a centralized leadership and instead tap into latent nationalism and deep economic frustration to build their army. Their battle cry: “Support the Qing, exterminate the foreigners.”

Many scholars brush off the Boxers as an ill-conceived and easily defeated revolt, but the military historian David J. Silbey shows just how close they came to beating back the combined might of all the imperial powers. Drawing on the diaries and letters of allied soldiers and diplomats, Silbey paints a vivid portrait of the short-lived war. Even though their cause ended just as quickly as it began, the bravery and patriotism of the Boxers would inspire Chinese nationalists—including a young Mao Zedong—for decades to come.

RAS CHINA MONOGRAPH SERIES – LAUNCH & THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE RAS LIBRARY – Shanghai 27/10/12

Wonderful that both the RAS China Monograph series is launched and the RAS also now has a permanent library once again in Shanghai….

RAS CHINA MONOGRAPH SERIES – LAUNCH

&

THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE RAS LIBRARY

DOUBLE EVENT

4pm Saturday, 27th October 2012

RAS Library, Sino British College

1195 FuxingZhong Lu, (near Shaanxi Nan Lu) Shanghai

We are delighted to invite our members and friends to this special Double Event: the launch of the China Monograph Series, published by Hong Kong University Press, followed by Lindsay Shen, author of the second book in the series (Knowledge is Pleasure: Florence Ayscough in Shanghai), who will give a presentation on Florence Ayscough, the first NCBRAS Honorary Librarian. It is fitting that after Lindsay’s talk, we will then gather for the Official Opening of the new RAS Library.

Please join us to celebrate these two important occasions.

PROGRAMME

4:00pm           Registration

4:30pm           Lindsay Shen – Presentation

5:30pm           Reception

6:00pm           Official Opening of RAS Library

Love in the Library: Florence Ayscough and the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

Born into wealth and privilege in Concession-era Shanghai, Florence Ayscough was far from the stereotypical Shanghailander. Writer, poetry translator, art collector and gardener, Ayscough was to become a highly respected interpreter of Chinese culture to the west. While her life in Shanghai encompassed the typical landmarks of Shanghailander life such as the Country Club, the Paper Hunt, the Race Course and the Astor House Hotel, it also revolved around the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, which elected her its first woman Honorary Member.

The Society’s librarian from 1908-1923, she built the library into one of the finest on the China Coast. Her second husband fell in love with her there, between the card catalogue and the bookshelves.

Join Lindsay Shen in an exploration into the life of this talented, multi-faceted woman who impacted the way the West understood China.

Lindsay Shen is the author of Knowledge is Pleasure: Florence Ayscough in Shanghai, published by Hong Kong University Press, as one of the two first titles in the series China Monographs from the Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai.

ENTRANCE:

Members                        40 rmb        or       120 rmb to include one monograph

Non Member                   80 rmb        or       150 rmb to include one monograph

LAUNCH SPECIAL OFFER PROMOTION – ONE FREE ENTRANCE:

If you purchase Monograph Series 1 and 2 (200 rmb) at the event.

PRIORITY BOOKING for Members until 24th October 2012

MEMBERSHIP applications and renewals will be available at this event.

RSVP: to RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn

David Porter’s Comparative Early Modernities: 1100-1800

A new book, Comparative Early Modernities: 1100-1800,  from David Porter, associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, who does a lot of highly respected work on both China and Chinoiserie (sorry about the sparse description below but that’s all the publisher has felt worth sharing with us mere mortals!) –

Recent historical scholarship has shown the way towards a geographically capacious conception of the early modern world. Featuring essays by nine leading scholars of early modern Asia and Europe, Comparative Early Modernities casts aside the legacies of European exceptionalism to reveal the interconnected multiplicity of the early modern world and of the variety of unexpected pathways linking these histories to the evolving modernities of the 21st century. In their fresh and provocative examinations of topics in literature, philosophy, art history, and political economy, the authors transform our understanding of global early modernity and reassess the theoretical and methodological premises of comparative historical studies.

United China Relief Posters

The United China Relief organisation that raised aid and awareness of the war in China from 1937 had a history of producing superb posters and materials in order to gain support for China’s cause against Japan’s invasion before America’s entry into the war. A large collection is held at the New York Public Library and is worth a browse. I’ve added some materials here and I’ll add more on my overspill Chinarhyming Tumblr site.

Junk at Full Sail

As it Sunday and a day of rest simply a picture today…a beautiful Chinese junk at full sail…

Making Cheongsams in the 1930s – The Street of Eternal Happiness: The Tailor

Respect to Rob Schmitz at American Public Media’s Marketplace radio show. He’s doing a series of progammes on different aspects of Shanghai Changle Lu (formerly Rue Bourgeat) and this one features a 94 year old cheongsam maker on the street who began making beautiful dresses in 1934 in the same building at No.217. Remarkable Rob found him – listen here

Visiting the Grave of ETC Werner in Ramsgate

I am mightily gratified that a number of readers of Midnight in Peking have decided that Pamela’s father ETC Werner, who sought desperately for justice for his daughter’s murder in the face of lies, hidden truths and diplomatic obstinacy, should be better remembered. Werner was forced to eventually return to England after the Communist takeover of Peking and died in February 1954 being buried in Ramsgate Cemetery in Kent. I’m afraid to say that I have yet to make it to Ramsgate to see his grave and pay homage, though fully intend to the next time I’m in England. Still, some people have visited and recorded his place of burial, updating the information using my book on the highly useful findagrave.com website – see here. This site now also records that Werner’s wife Gladys Nina Werner (nee Ravenshaw) and Pamela are both buried in the former British Cemetery in Peking (concerted over these days with the Second Ring Road I’m afraid). My thanks to Ash Montagu for doing that.

The entrance to Ramsgate Cemetery

The Chapel of Rest at Ramsgate

Shanghai – M Literary Salon: Pankaj Mishra: From the Ruins of Empire – 21/10/12

This Sunday at M on the Bund in Shanghai –

M Literary Salon: Pankaj Mishra-From the Ruins of Empire

In conversation with Jeffrey Wasserstrom

RMB 75, includes a drink

More details here

Join us for a discussion with the author of one of the year’s most talked-about books, From the Ruins of Empire. Mishra tells the story of the fall and remaking of Asia, through a group of remarkable thinkers who created a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas – ideas that today lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood. These thinkers created the ideas which in turn were to doom the new empires and which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the 21^st century. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, co-editor of Chinese Characters: Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land and professor of modern Chinese history, moderates.

Pankaj Mishra writes principally for the Guardian, New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West.