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mbondlamberty's review against another edition
5.0
Very interesting depiction of the events and the context around the events.
Love the details on what some might consider to be minor characters
Love the details on what some might consider to be minor characters
sammywebs022's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5
Very interesting, though slow at times, but actually pretty funny sometimes, as several of the people in here like Monsieur Pichon are hilariously relatable and also the parts about the Dowager Empress were cool.
Very interesting and suspenseful and well written, but I don’t care much for military stuff and it was slow sometimes.
Very interesting, though slow at times, but actually pretty funny sometimes, as several of the people in here like Monsieur Pichon are hilariously relatable and also the parts about the Dowager Empress were cool.
Very interesting and suspenseful and well written, but I don’t care much for military stuff and it was slow sometimes.
kathleenitpdx's review
4.0
A fascinating piece of history,well told. Diana Preston gives us enough background to dive into the story of foreigners under seige in China in 1900 without being pedantic. She concentrates on the seige of the legation district in Peking but fills in information from the battle at the concessions in Tientsin, the seige of the Peitang Cathedral and the harassment and murder of missionaries in the countryside of northern China. Ms. Preston does a good job of using the words of the people involved to give us a chance to get to know them.
My small quibbles with the book are that she sometimes introduces people suddenly without giving background until much later in the book. For instance at one point she says that Herbert Hoover called in his engineers from the countryside. He had not been previously mentioned in the book and we are not given an explanation of what he and his wife are doing in China at this time until 50 pages later.
Also I kept wondering why we are given very little information from the Chinese side of these incidents. I suspected it was because little in the way of records or personal writings have survived from that time and I was correct but Ms. Preston only explains this in the last chapter.
This is an amazing story of the first international police force involving troops from Japan, France, Russia, the US and Britain (including Sikhs, Rajputs and Chinese), and a turning point in Chinese history.
My small quibbles with the book are that she sometimes introduces people suddenly without giving background until much later in the book. For instance at one point she says that Herbert Hoover called in his engineers from the countryside. He had not been previously mentioned in the book and we are not given an explanation of what he and his wife are doing in China at this time until 50 pages later.
Also I kept wondering why we are given very little information from the Chinese side of these incidents. I suspected it was because little in the way of records or personal writings have survived from that time and I was correct but Ms. Preston only explains this in the last chapter.
This is an amazing story of the first international police force involving troops from Japan, France, Russia, the US and Britain (including Sikhs, Rajputs and Chinese), and a turning point in Chinese history.