Boxers
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Boxers. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a secret political society of China. Of course this is not the Chinese name. The object of the organization is to drive out all foreigners, especially Europeans. It is opposed to missionaries, railroads, in short, all changes in the ancient order of society. In one respect the Boxer movement may be regarded a patriotic one. The most serious uprising took place in 1900, when an insurrection rendered the Chinese government apparently powerless. Native Christians and European missionaries were massacred, railroads were torn up, the German minister and the head of the Japanese legation were murdered in the streets of Pekin. The entire diplomatic corps was shut up in the British embassy and cut off from the rest of the world. Ministers and their families were in immediate danger of extermination,--a position from which they were rescued by a relief force of 12,000 men, made up of French, German, Russian, Japanese, and American troops. On the approach of this army the government officials fled with the Boxers, showing their sympathy with the uprising. The affront to international courtesy was, to say the least, a serious one. China was compelled to pay an indemnity of $337,500,000. The amount paid the United States proved excessive. Our government returned a portion to China. See Pekin; China
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
members of a Chinese secret society which aimed ostensibly at the expulsion of foreigners from China. The native name for the organization is I-hoch'uan, usually rendered "Combination of Righteous Harmony Fists," and the like. An uprising of the Boxers in 1900 led to international intervention in China, in order to rescue members of the foreign legations besieged in Pekin. See CHINA. BOXING. See PUGILISM.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The events described are settled history, but their meaning has been turned inside out. Aiton's 1910 account allows that "in one respect the Boxer movement may be regarded a patriotic one" while treating the rising chiefly as an affront to international courtesy; in the People's Republic the Yihequan are honoured as anti-imperialist resisters, and the 1901 settlement, with its indemnity of 450 million taels, is taught as a centrepiece of the "century of humiliation." The Qing dynasty that Aiton says fled with the Boxers fell in 1912, two years after he wrote. The portion of the indemnity the United States remitted was spent on scholarships and on the school that became Tsinghua University, now one of China's leading institutions.
Written for this edition, 2026.