Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion

Osprey's study of the violent Boxer Rebellion, which swept northern China in 1900. The Boxers were a secret society who sought to rid their country of the pernicious influence of the foreign powers who had gradually acquired a stranglehold on China. With the connivance of the Imperial Court they laid siege to the legation quarter of Peking. Trapped inside were an assortment of diplomats, civilians and a small number of troops. They were all Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister in Peking, had to defend against thousands of hostile Boxers and Imperial troops. It would now be a race against time. Could the rag-tag defenders hold out long enough for the gathering relief force to reach them? This book describes the desperate series of events as the multinational force rushed to their rescue.

Peter Harrington, a native of Manchester, England, is currently the curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at the John Hay Library of Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. He is an authority on artists and war and has written extensively on the subject, including British Artists and War: The Face of Battle in Paintings and Prints (1993), as well as organising a number of exhibitions on war art. This is his third book in the Osprey Campaign series, his others being Campaign 12: Culloden 1746 and Campaign 35: Plassey 1757.