China Journal 1889-1900


Book Description

A rare historical document that makes compelling reading, China Journal is a moving record of missionary and Chinese life nearly a century ago, "a t ale of ordinary mortals traveling steadily toward their doom".--Publishers Weekly. 8-page photograph insert.




China Journal 1889-1900


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China Gothic


Book Description

As China struggled to redefine itself at the turn of the twentieth century, nationalism, religion, and material culture intertwined in revealing ways. This phenomenon is evident in the twin biographies of North China’s leading Catholic bishop of the time, Alphonse Favier (1837–1905), and the Beitang cathedral, epicenter of the Roman Catholic mission in China through incarnations that began in 1701. After its relocation and reconstruction under Favier’s supervision, the cathedral—and Favier—miraculously survived a two-month siege in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. Featuring a French Gothic Revival design augmented by Chinese dragon–shaped gargoyles, marble balustrades in the style of Daoist and Buddhist temples, and other Chinese aesthetic flourishes, Beitang remains an icon of Sino-Western interaction. Anthony Clark draws on archival materials from the Vatican and collections in France, Italy, China, Poland, and the United States to trace the prominent role of French architecture in introducing Western culture and Catholicism to China. A principal device was the aesthetic imagined by the Gothic Revival movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the premier example of this in China being the Beitang cathedral. Bishop Favier’s biography is a lens through which to examine Western missionaries’ role in colonial endeavors and their complex relationship with the Chinese communities in which they lived and worked.




China's Saints


Book Description

The first book-length study of China's Catholic martyr saints, this work recounts the cultural, religious, and economic conflicts that unfolded during China's Qing dynasty (1644–1911). China's Saints considers closely the personal and public lives of both missionaries and Chinese converts lived during China's late-imperial era.




The Man Awakened from Dreams


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A vivid study of China’s modernization through the lens of one schoolteacher’s life: “A tour de force of originality, clarity, and skillful organization.” —Chinese Historical Review In this beautifully crafted study of one emblematic life, Henrietta Harrison addresses large themes in Chinese history while conveying with great immediacy the textures and rhythms of everyday existence in the countryside in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Liu Dapeng was a provincial degree-holder who never held government office. Through the story of his family, the author illustrates the decline of the countryside in relation to the cities as a result of modernization, and the transformation of Confucian ideology as a result of these changes. Based on nearly four hundred volumes of Liu’s diary and other writings, the book illustrates what it was like to study in an academy and to be a schoolteacher, the pressures of changing family relationships, the daily grind of work in industry and agriculture, people’s experience with government, and life under the Japanese occupation. “Should be on any short-list of ‘necessary’ books on modern China.” —American Historical Review “Harrison does nothing less than open up for us a whole new world.” —Journal of Asian Studies




History in Three Keys


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Content Description #Includes bibliographical references and index.




Late Victorian Holocausts


Book Description

This global environmental and political history “will redefine the way we think about the European colonial project” (Observer). “ . . . sets the triumph of the late 19th-century Western imperialism in the context of catastrophic El Niño weather patterns at that time . . . groundbreaking, mind-stretching.” —The Independent Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China; and Northeastern Brazil. All were affected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated local populations. But the effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. Davis argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as the Third World were sown in this era of High Imperialism, as the price for capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants’ lives.




The Last Refugees from Shansi


Book Description

Olivia C. Ogren and her family were Swedish missionaries serving with the China Inland Mission during the fateful Boxer summer of 1900. Now available in English for the first time, this is her personal account of the trials and suffering they experienced as they fled from their mission in the northern Shansi town of Yongning. Beset by Boxer rebels, local bandits, starvation and sickness, the Ogren family would be asked to pay the ultimate price for their service to the people of Shansi. "The whole situation had become extremely dangerous. One could hear the noise on the street. We realized that the people had become even more conscious of us as foreigners and we were the target of their deviltry. Drought and famine had been the threat to life in China from the beginning, so I cannot say it caused the Boxer Rebellion. Undoubtedly, the floods and famine of this time were two of the matches that ignited this holocaust. But there were other reasons and I will leave that to the historians. However, to tell what I heard, saw and experienced is another matter. That was too vivid and terrible for me ever to forget." About the Tranlator Samuel Ogren, Sr. (1899-1988) was born in China, as was his younger sister Ruth, to Swedish missionaries Olivia and Per Alfred Ogren. Their father died from wounds inflicted by the Boxers in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. Their mother, Olivia C. Ogren, wrote this book in 1901 recalling their harrowing escape from the Boxers. Samuel Ogren, Sr. eventually settled in Delray Beach, Florida where he is believed to have been Delray's first registered architect. He maintained his practice from 1924 until 1950 when he semi-retired to Windermere, Florida. He designed numerous residential and commercial buildings, among which is the Delray High School designed and built in 1925. It was later placed on the National Register for Historical Places. It was restored and is part of what is known as Old School Square. Mr. Ogren was also an accomplished classical pianist. Catalogue Information




Nostra Historia #3


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Nostra Historia #3 has essays on the Weimar Republic's weaknesses, the Boxer Rebellion, and Rosyjskie Panowanie na Białorusi i Ukrainie.




Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God


Book Description

These are the stories of five ordinary women-Sarah Edwards, Lilias Trotter, Gladys Aylward, Esther Ahn Kim, and Helen Roseveare-who trusted in their extraordinary God as he led them to do great things for his kingdom. Noël Piper holds up their lives and deeds as examples of what it means to be truly faithful. Learning about these women will challenge readers to make a difference for Christ in their families, in the church, and throughout the world.