The Boxer Uprising, which occurred when a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China in 1900 against the spread of Western and Japanese influence, could be considered the first global war in history.
What caused it, how people of that time perceived it, how it’s perceived now from different angles, and its implications in the present day will be covered in the next Modern China Lecture, “China and the Ghosts of 1900: The Brutal Boxer Rising and the Civilized World’s Savage Revenge,” on Wednesday, Feb. 24.
The talk, presented by history professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom of the University of California, Irvine, will take place at Cal State San Bernardino’s John M. Pfau Library, room PL-4005, from noon-2 p.m. The event is free and open to the public; parking is $6 at the university.
The Boxer Uprising took its name from how Westerners referred to the insurgents, who performed physical exercises they believed would protect them from bullets. The insurgents attacked missionaries and Chinese Christians, and the conflict ended when troops marching under eight foreign flags took control of Peking (now Beijing).
Wasserstrom is the Chancellor's Professor of History at UC Irvine and the author of four books, including “Global Shanghai, 1850-2010” (Routledge, 2009) and “China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford, 2010 and 2013 editions), which has been translated into Korean, Turkish and Chinese (complex characters).
He is a frequent contributor to newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times; magazines such at TIME and Newsweek; and literary reviews, including the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is currently completing work on a book about the Boxer Crisis of 1900.
Wasserstrom’s book, “China in the Twenty-First Century: What Everyone Needs to Know,” will be available for purchase at the lecture, and also is currently available at the Coyote Bookstore.
The Modern China Lecture Series was initiated to promote awareness of important issues related to China for those on the CSUSB campus and in the community. In the series of lectures, workshops, and roundtable forums since January 2014, China scholars from UC San Diego, UC Riverside, the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, and other institutions have visited the CSUSB campus to share their expertise and opinions.
Speakers have included specialists in history, economics, political science, philosophy, finance, security studies, literature, anthropology and other fields.
The Modern China Lecture Series is sponsored by the CSUSB History Club/Phi Alpha Theta Chapter, the CSUSB Department of History, the Intellectual Life Fund, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the College of Extended Learning, the John M. Pfau Library, the College of Business and Public Administration, the departments of sociology and anthropology, and the University Diversity Committee.
For more information on the Feb. 24 event or the Modern China Lecture Series, contact Jeremy Murray, assistant history professor, at (909) 537-5540 or jmurray@csusb.edu.
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