Some Did It for Civilisation; Some Did It for Their Country: A Revised View of the Boxer War »

Jane Elliott is an independent scholar and has published in many fields including history of anthropology, economics and law. At present she is writing a book on cartoons of the Boxer War.

This book marks a total departure from previous studies of the Boxer War. It evaluates the way the war was perceived and portrayed at the time by the mass media. As such the book offers insights to a wider audience than that of sinologists or Chinese historians. The important distinction made by the author is between image makers and eyewitnesses. Whole categories of powerful image makers, both Chinese and foreign, never saw anything of the Boxer War but were responsible for disseminating images of that war to millions of people in China and throughout the world.