History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth

by Paul A. Cohen

A comprehensive look at the Boxer Rebellion of 1898-1900, a bloody uprising in north China against native Christians and foreign missionaries.

Genres: History, China, Nonfiction, School, Asia, Historical, Theory

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 21, 1997

About the author

Paul A. Cohen is Edith Stix Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies and History Emeritus at Wellesley College.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The framework of this work of history and historiography is Paul Cohen's three "keys" of history. He says that the three major types of "history" are: history-as-event (what most people think of as history- what we read in the textbooks, what we think historians are trying to reconstruct- the truth to the best of the knowledge of the "impartial" facts), history-as-experience (the thoughts and memoirs of people who were involved in an event, and how those change during and after things going on), and history-as-myth (how history is used and exploited by various people, twisted to suit the needs and ideals of a current generation, the story that a current political regime pushes until it is accepted by fact as the public). His argument is that all of these "keys" of history are valid- he sees them both as musical keys (shades of the overall composition) and as the literal kind of keys that open the big old rusty doors to the Secret Garden. He exercises this theory through telling the story of the Boxer Rebellion.

Cohen does a very good job of seperating out a sequence of events from a personal opinion of how these events happened. He says from the beginning that he obviously has a point of view in putting these things together, and that every other historian he cites does too. He does a good job of pointing out everyone's biases and asking us to put the story together with all perspectives as part of the story- don't get too literal, don't forget other motives you may not have considered. I will say that this book is not for the faint of heart- it can drive you to pull your hair out with the endless revisions of fact and opinion, story told over and over again, facts that you thought you had down entirely taken away. You'll have to really commit the time to it.

The one thing I will say is that Cohen does seem to play favorites, even though he declares all keys as valid in their own way as another- the history-as-event is clearly presented in the most coherent, easy to understand fashion and he certainly seems to favor that as the best version of history. Many more personal peccadilloes of witnesses or mythmakers are denounced in the second two sections than those of historians in the first.

I would also recommend that you look up a bit about the Boxer Rebellion before going into this. Most of the class I read this with did not and it made discussion a bit awkward and difficult to start out with, because no one was sure of the ground they were standing on with a book that outright tells you that everything in it could be a lie. You do not need to be a China specalist by any means in order to read this, and in some ways I think that it helps if you are not- I think it probably makes the read much more shocking than if you are a scholar trying to nitpick about names and dates and precise translations and representations. Being able to focus on the theory of it is much more satisfying.

[Dan Slimmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I was buying a book about the Boxer Rebellion. But in reality, this is a book about history itself, and it's phenomenal. Cohen looks at the Boxer Rebellion from 3 perspectives – history, experience, and myth – pointing out the lessons we can learn from each. It's a great way to learn about the postmodern approach to history, and I know I'll be conceptualizing things in Cohen's terms for a long time to come.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I approached this book thinking it would be simply about turn of the century China, however, I walked away with so much more. The book is a discussion of history as a whole and the differences in experience, with the Boxers as the case study. Also one of those books you learn something new from every time you read it.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dense and dry. Author makes an assumption that his readers know what the Boxer Rebellion is at the beginning of the book. I did not have much awareness of it so I was confused at the start. He also spends an unnecessary amount of time on certain topics that aren’t that important. For example, he literally spends three pages talking about the differences between droughts and floods. It’s not like he was talking about the effects of a drought or flood on China (he does that later), he’s literally just writing about the concept of a flood or drought.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent for getting (grad) students to think about different aspects and functions of history.

Re-read September 2013. This time, I used it much earlier in the semester, and I think it worked even better.

Re-read September 2015. Again, very popular with the MA Students.

Re-read September 2019.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating historical event (Boxer Rebellion) coupled with a fascinating method/concepts of considering and understanding historical experiences. A fantastic read that has really influenced the direction of my uni interests, I'll continue to sing its praises and likely return to it frequently.

[Sam Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was Pretty Good but with some qualms toward the end. Cohen aims to use the Boxer Uprising as basically a test-case for analyzing history and how history is experienced and thought about: through the lens of the historian-narrator taking a distanced, birds-eye-view of the event; through direct person-level experience; and through the later mythologization of history toward present political ends. Some of his argument in that last section, about history-as-myth, are what I had some qualms with but in general those chapters were still really interesting and valuable records of the changing interpretations of the past over time. In his conclusion, Cohen kinda recuperates myth as just as legitimate a way of engaging with the past as scholarly history or direct experience (and refers back to a point he made earlier that we constantly engage in "autobiographical myth-making" about our own lives to turn them into comprehensible narratives), but in the earlier chapters about the various later readings of the Boxers in China (first as backwards superstitious peasants holding China back in the New Culture Movement of the 1910s, then as anti-imperialist heroes in the May Fourth and May Thirtieth movements of the 1920s-30s, and then in various readings as righteous rebels during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s-70s) he cleaves much more negatively, especially in the Cultural Revolution chapter. While I agree with Cohen about the need for honest, scholarly engagement with the past, he veers (especially in the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath chapter) into disavowing politicized history almost entirely. Iunno man!!! There's ways to be politically engaged and make the past meaningful to the political moment while also engaging with the past honestly and with clarity (something which to be fair I don't think most Cultural Revolution era approaches were doing lol).

TBH though, that's mostly contained in one out of 9 chapters. Maybe it's just that the closer he gets to the modern day, and the more he talked about Marxism, the more I bristled. The rest of the book is well-written and goes into details of the Boxer Uprising that I hadn't read before! I think this paired really well with Joseph Esherick's The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, which I read earlier this year, and which paints an incredibly detailed picture of the social and cultural environment in northern China toward the end of the 19th century (the closest to a Marxist/environmental-economic-social history of the early Boxers). What it DOESN'T pair with is The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 by Diana Preston, which I did not finish because it was maybe the most eurocentric book on Chinese history I've ever read. I guess this review serves double duty as a literature review of books on the Boxer Uprising LOL. I wish there was more Chinese scholarship on the Boxers translated into English.

[Chongxi Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

写得真好，翻译得也用心。书中写的历史多面中的三面-事件、神话和经历，可能正对应事情三面-事实真相、你的一面和我的一面。“历史没有停滞不前，社会也没有静止不动，只有人在一个个地死去。死亡是生命的终结，由于这个独一无二的特性，对于死亡的畏惧和优虑就成了形成人们的命运观的主要因素；人们的视线被引离了社会和历史，而更多地去关注他们个人的命运。”


1、就人们的感受而言，水灾和旱灾的另一个不同之处在于，水灾常常是人祸（至少在某种程度上是如此）。由于经验不足和技能欠佳，或者由于负责防洪的官员玩忽职守或贪污腐败，植树造林、疏浚河道、修建和维护河堤等防洪措施没有到位，本来可以预防的水灾有时候就会发生。在这种情况下，一旦灾民们对安全和生存的担忧得到缓解，他们往往会产生愤怒情绪，并把怒气发向地方当局。相反，干旱不是人力所能左右的（虽然在某些情况下人类可以通过自身的努力缓解灾情）。从历史上看，人们常常认为旱灾是由超自然的力量造成的，需要供奉祭品以息其怒，或者是由宇宙失衡造成的，需要恢复平衡，扶正乾坤。

2、拉尔夫•L. 罗斯诺对近来关于谣言的产生和传播进行的研究做了总结，认为谣言是“夹杂了个人对世界的主观臆测的公众信息”。他进一步解释说，谣言“表达了试图认知生存环境的人们的忧虑和困惑”。他认为，谣言的产生和流传是下述四个因素造成的：个人的忧虑、大众的困惑、轻信盲从和“与结果有关的参与”（他指的是每一个人对谣言的内容是否真实所做的判断）。

罗斯诺在另一著作中把“谣言”和“闲话”做了区分。他认为，谣言一般包含着带有传谣者强烈感情色彩的主题，而闲言碎语则不然。他指出：“闲话是人们之间的闲谈，像是一种智力型的口香糖，而谣言里面含有实质性的感情因素。”

3、关于1900年的暴力杀人事件，值得注意的不是其不普遍性，而是其不统一性。不同的人有不同的死法。有些人是受害者，有些人是加害者，有些人是目击者。有人记述了人死时的惨状和号叫，以及死尸发出的恶臭。有人描述了本人或熟人亲眼看到的恐怖的杀人场面。许多人叙述了他们不得不做的各种吓人的选择。简言之，死亡经历和其他经历一样，主要是个人的事情，它是比任何其他形式的经历更重要的关于个人的生平资料。历史没有停滞不前，社会也没有静止不动，只有人在一个个地死去。死亡是生命的终结，由于这个独一无二的特性，对于死亡的畏惧和优虑就成了形成人们的命运观的主要因素；人们的视线被引离了社会和历史，而更多地去关注他们个人的命运。

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

如何去理解历史与真相的关系？还原历史经历的片面性与其系统解释性，动因的探究可行性？
“完全恢复历史的本来面目是不可能之事，但是我们可以想象出这段历史的画面，因为我们不是全部历史的亲历者，但却是自身历史的亲历者。这种个人的主观经验是我们评说和省察与众不同的历史经历的基础。换言之，我们虽不能完全按照生活在当时的人们的理解和认知恢复过去的本来面目，但我们能谈论过去，描述过去的某些方面，以大体上接近事实的语言讲清楚历史真相与神话化的历史和故事化的历史之间的不同之处。
造成不同的原因之一是，人们的历史经历是以感觉为基础的，与人们对历史的感觉层面密切相关的是，经历也要包含着人们的所有情感，我们与真实的经历越��近，人们的情感生活-使人们悲哀，愤怒，紧张或厌烦的事情，以及人们的忧虑，仇恨，希望和担心-- 的地位就越突出。

人们的历史经历的另一个明显特性是，在难以忘怀的经历中，有一些不值得记住的东西。真实的过去包含着许许多多不同的经历，其中一部分是重要的，关键的，值得记住的，明确的，另有一部分是辅助性的，处于从属地位。

过去另外一个特点是盲目性，这个特点使所有的经历变得色彩缤纷，饶有趣味。”后来发生之事不可能影响以前发生之事“。所有的经历都收到地理空间的严重制约。实际的历史经历还有一个特点，使得它使真实的历史截然不同与复述的历史和神化化的历史，这个特点与亲历者的动机意识相关。历史学家的目的是了解和解释历史；神话制造者则从历史中吸取能量，为现实的政治或宣传目的服务，为深层次的心理基础造势。

历史学家总是把历史的动机意识强行导入多少有点合理性的阐述体系-”发生于其后必是其结果“，总是把”个人的解释和想象“掺杂进去，也就是说我们用来解释历史事件的概念，往往与直接创造历史的人们的观念有很大的差异，其结果是不可避免的曲解了真实的历史。

直接参与者对历史的看法但有不同历史意识的个人意识。历史学家经常给历史事件划定界限，何时开始，何时结束，都以某个特殊事件为标志，但是个人的经历都是具有连续性的，具有自身的发展轨迹。“ 这无论是对历史学家治学还是我们读史使一种值得普及的观点。

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many ways to write history. One of those, sure, is to simply list a sterile litany of names and dates, one after the other. Other approaches, however, offer insight that can be lost in that straightforward, blow-by-blow account. To demonstrate the richness of the many options open to the historian, Cohen takes one "event" -- the Boxer Rebellion, a turn-of-the-century, anti-imperialist Chinese uprising -- and considers it through three different prisms (what he calls "keys"). These keys: history as "event" (that linear, Big Picture account); history as experience (how the "event" was perceived and understood by people involved in it, at the time); and history as myth (how the "event" has been exploited and understood in the years since, by people with their own interests and agendas). The result is a complex yet rewarding book that advanced students interested in the possibilities of academic history will get much from

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

这本书不但是关于义和团这一段历史的，也是关于我们如何看待不同历史资料的思考方式的。阅读这本书是完全超出我期待的一次体验，作者不但让我看到了历史的多重维度，同时他也保持了全书优美如散文般的行文调性，让人心旷神怡。

This book is not only about the history of the Boxer Rebellion but also about how we think about different historical materials. Reading this book was an experience that completely exceeded my expectations. The author not only revealed the multiple dimensions of history to me but also maintained a prose-like elegance throughout the book, which was refreshing and delightful.

[WaldenOgre · Rating 4 out of 5]

柯文分别从作为事件的义和团（历史学家视角）、作为经历的义和团（当事人视角）和作为神话的义和团（历史素材利用者视角）这三个角度去探索义和团这段历史的不同维度。确实如作者所说，他更关注的，与其说是义和团这个主题，不如说是一种历史研究的方式。

无论如何，中国教民与非教民的敌意与冲突本就存在，但1900年的大旱灾才是点燃情绪、令事态发展失去控制的关键因素，而西摩尔援军不经清政府同意便挺进北京的举动则最终打破了清廷内部的意见平衡，促成了战争的最终爆发。

然而，在之后的整个世纪里，中国人看待义和团事件的复杂心态，归根结底还是源自于对西方世界的复杂态度。因为西方既意味着蛮横的帝国主义，又代表了一种不可阻挡的现代性。于是，中国人看待、诠释和评判这段历史的起点也在不断地摇摆。

我们不断地在重新塑造历史，而历史也在不断地重新塑造着我们。

[Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my History Senior Seminar. This was a dense book with a lot going on, but I found the way it talked about history to be mostly interesting. The history of the Boxers is so detailed, and there was so much cool stuff here that never gets taught in public schools, so that was also very important to explore.

[Amelie Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cohen's book provides an comprehensive historical view of the Boxers and is interestingly composed of three sections compared to the three keys of music. Cohen not only presents an openness to different interpretive perspectives, but also pays special attention to historians’ engagement with methodological and theoretical issues, showing the critical awareness of his own epistemologies.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book as it not only offers lots of information about the Boxer Rebellion, but also tries to explain what history is - and the historian's place in it- from a more theoretical standpoint.

[汪先生 · Rating 4 out of 5]

2018-05-03 22:02:56
导师非常推崇的书，过了大半年后才读完，初读电子版小部分为江苏人民出版社，后改读此版纸质，才知此版乃全版。义和团被柯文分为三部分，分别如此对应：事件-历史学家的研究，经历-目之所及的亲历者记述，神话-因政治目的而改造过的历史。这三个部分写的都很棒，结合的巧妙，作者在经历部分实际上也有自己的研究，但已尽量叙述为主。此书中英材料兼具，还有不少史学理论部分，实证外颇具思想性。不喜尾注的方式，翻来辛苦。

[Mary Ann Livingood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read 8/12 chapters for a class so I'm counting it - it was pretty good and informative on the diff ways history can be written and understood, one day I'll have to come back and read those last four chapters !!

[Joanna Walbourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

i expected this book to be a bit of tough read, but, i think i actually had an existential crisis reading this??? about the continuity of experience and whatnot. this book was awesome. extra points too because Cohen repeatedly quotes one of my fave books of Robertson Davies!

[Cordellya Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Cohen's explanation of how to view history by considering event, experience and myth is paradigm shifting. I can't read a history now without thinking about this idea. This is a must read for anyone interested in history!

[汪先生 · Rating 3 out of 5]

2018-05-03 23:37:44
尽管是囿于时代，还是强烈反对删减版，请挪步社会科学文献出版社版本。

[Cpen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly thought-provoking book that is suitable to three types of readers.

For people who want to know more about the Boxer Uprising and the subsequent Eight Nations Expedition, the book presented a complete and multi-faceted account that I believe is unmatched by other books. Apart from presenting the scholarly account that was the consensus amount historians, much more paragraphs were devoted to the experience of witness and participants, as well as the interpretation by modern Chinese politicians of different regimes. The book includes aspects of the Boxer Movement that were interesting and important to our understanding to the event that are often unmentioned in some most concise and popular version of history, such as the role of women and virgin in Boxer movement and the entertainment aspect of Boxer. Photographs and publications were included. Another important component of Boxer history is the interpretation by political activists in 1920s and during cultural revolution. It is interesting to see how interpretation changes with different social and political environment.

For people who were less focused in history, the book present story and lessons on what to expect and how to survive in a chaotic country. Commonly arise circumstances such as spread of rumours and scapegoatiam were explained with sociology/anthropology perspectives. It is basically a walkthrough on what to expect if the society encountered tremendous crisis.

Lastly for history lovers, the author use Boxer Movement as an example to probe deep into the debate of historiolography. He classify history as event, experience and myth and explained in details their difference and theirs tensions. It is all parts of the great debate on what history should be and how should academia communicate with the general public on the pretext of mutual respect and efficiency

[Cat Kearbey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really engaging and well-written history of the Boxers that contains a very useful framework for thinking about history. Even if the subject doesn't interest you, Cohen's approach to history might.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

经典

[Jiro]

事实到经历到谣言到神话，义和团标本下的真史学

[Ryo · Rating 5 out of 5]

很详细。
1. 中国人的历史印象中太平天国>义和团。太平军虽然在中国历史上地位重要，但在西方人头脑中几乎没有留下什么印象，而义和团却成了欧洲和美洲关于“第三世界”认知体系的一部分。义和团不仅是历史事件，更是被经历、被神话化的符号。
2. 直隶的特殊环境让这里成为排外和反教运动的中心。外国势力的入侵、铁路和电报的渗透，让许多人失业，尤其是传教士活动频繁的背景下，矛盾一触即发。当地的反洋教行动，某种程度上与德国的反犹太人运动和17世纪的塞勒姆反巫师活动有相似之处——都是社会失衡下的集体宣泄。
3. 义和团运动不仅是一场军事冲突，更是法术和信仰的较量。在那个动荡的环境中，原本根植于民间文化的信仰，随着恐惧和谣言发酵，演变成了群体性歇斯底里。红灯照的纯洁问题，既是对运动合法性的攻击，也是当时文化中对“纯洁”与“法力”关系的信念映射。
4. 从新文化运动到文革，再到现代，义和团的历史价值往往让位于政治需要。陈独秀视义和团为历史陈迹，鲁迅却认为它是随时会复活的幽灵。现代的历史叙述者有意将“排外主义”与“反帝爱国主义”混为一谈，让义和团成为褒贬时事的工具。历史本应是开放问题的见证，但当它被用来服务政治目的时，就不再是历史本身，而是神话制造的过程。中苏交恶期间中国和苏联的历史学家围绕义和团问题进行政治宣传战，两个最爱玩实用主义的政权演示如何把历史当玩具。

[Chen Qu · Rating 4 out of 5]

很明显的后现代研学风格，框架很好，但是最后大幅度放弃了作者的权威。

[Dan McGill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book to anyone who specializes in history. The Boxers make for an excellent case study in this book, but the overall theme is HOW history is made, and the work of the historian in navigating and interpreting these three seemingly inseparable keys.

[Tom Darrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was assigned this book for an introductory history Master's level writing and research class. I have been a history teacher for a while now and even though I teach the Boxer Rebellion, I knew little about it other than 1) it was a semi-religious native response to European imperialism and 2) it failed.

This author could have taken the standard beginning to end approach to the events, mixing various methods, but he chose a different approach. Cohen covers the Boxer rebellion from three perspectives 1) narrative, 2)experience and 3) myth. The first section is very dry (and that cost him a star on goodreads). It is a factual account of events of the rebellion. The second is the longest and most juicy. It is more of a thematic history, covering the roles that fear, famine and women played. The third section covers how the events of the Boxer Rebellion were used by later groups, like the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, to push forward their ideals.

I liked the subject material and the way he broke down the subject into three styles made me think more about how those styles related to each other. For those reasons I wanted to give the book high marks. The first section was very dull and by breaking apart the three styles, in a somewhat artificial way, he takes away from the overall view. For those reasons I took away marks. I was hung up for a while about giving it 3 or 4 stars, but I realized that my 4 star reasons had more to do with the paper I wrote and the discussion I had in class.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for a grad class. On one hand, this is a fantastic book. Cohen breaks down very clearly what we as historians need to consider when writing history - event vs experience vs myth - and leads us through the various facets of these "keys" while using the example of the Boxer Rebellion to illustrate. I suppose I should mention that I know absolutely zero about the Boxer Rebellion other than Angel and Darla had the time of their lives there (whoa...that was almost too geeky even for me...)but anyway, point is I have no idea whether Cohen's history is actually any good.
My three star rating comes from something entirely different. Cohen's writing is horrible. Horrible. Multiple times I had to read sentences out loud 4+ times to get the meaning. Or I read them to my husband because I was incredulous that Cohen had managed to fit that many words and commas into one "sentence."
Okay, rant over. This book is very useful, but it's just not as well written.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cohen uses the Boxer Rebellion to look at three ways of analyzing history: the historian's approach which has the advantage of hindsight about what it all meant; the more immediate experiences of the participants; and the way history is reinterpreted as National Myth (so at various points the Boxers were interpreted as savages who wanted China back in the dark ages or heroic champions of anti-imperialist freedom). If your interest is the rebellion itself, the event section sketches it out (causes, events, turning point) but there's more meat in the experience section. And the meat is quite fascinating, putting in perspective the Boxer's relationship to opera (which had puzzled me reading the graphic novel Boxers a while back), their faith in magic even when it didn't work, and similar issues.