China Journal 1889-1900: An American Missionary Family During the Boxer Rebellion With the Letters and Diaries of Eva Jane Price and Her Family Book

I read this because I wanted to know more about the Boxer Rebellion after reading Gene Yang's Boxers and Saints (great books in their own right). And, while this book does not delve into the historical context of the rebellion, it does a great job of showing us some ordinary people who got caught up in it.

We meet Eva and Charles Price and their children through the letters Eva sends home from China. The Prices are missionaries, so their primary goal is to do some soul saving abroad, but they also help teach women to read and run a clinic for opium addicts. Sadly, these dedicated people endure one tragedy after another, and then the biggest one of all when the Boxer Rebellion overtakes them.

This is a very intimate portrait of family life as well as a glimpse into history and I enjoyed it very much. You may worry, given the age of the book, that it would be a bit racist -- but despite the occasional patronizing tone the Prices genuinely seem to care about the people they meet in China and want to help, rather than viewing them with contempt. It's weird that an editorial note comments that they "couldn't comprehend that their ideas were harmful to the people of China" -- I didn't see that at all. How could the idea of Christianity itself - absent from any compulsion to convert - be harmful? If I was looking for something that harmed China during that period, opium would be my number one candidate.