THE BOXER REBELLION

On the centenary of the tragic summer in Peking which saw the foreign Legations under siege by a xenophobic revolutionary movement encouraged by the Manchu Court, the author goes over the events of those 55 days, looking at them in a new historical light without pre-conceived ideas. Having come into possession of documents contained in the "diplomatic bag" of the Italian minister of that time - the marquis Giuseppe Salvago-Raggi - direct witness together with his wife of the siege and of the unnerving negotiations, the author has put together an enthralling historical account with vast, invaluable and hitherto mostly unpublished photographic evidence. Who were the Boxers? What were the true roles of the Powers then present in China, some of whom were responsible for violent military attacks against the provinces of the Empire? In whose interest was it to cause riots, culminating in the assassination of the German minister, whose death was strangely announced five days beforehand by the British press? A book of fundamental historic importance which, one century later, re-opens a series of sensitive diplomatic dossiers and which explains the collapse of the Heavenly Empire, opening up new horizons to understanding the history of modern China.