The Year of the Rat Reading 5: "The Boxer Rebellion: China's War on Foreigners, 1900"

This is a great year to read about Chinese people killing foreigners, with the Olympics coming and all. So that's what I have done.
I didn't really know much about the Boxers, except that they really weren't bulletproof, even though they claimed to be. I know they attacked the overseas communities in Northern China in 1900 and that the Empress Dowager was involved. I also heard that she was really into freaky sex. That is somewhat mentioned in the end of the book, but not as explicitly as I had read it in other history books.
The foreigner community was surrounded by the Boxers for the summer of 1900 and were reduced to eating horse meat. So in other words, it was like they were on one of those semester abroad course in France. As someone who has eaten donkey in China I can empathize with what they had to go through.
What the Boxers put the foreigner community through is similar to what Mao put his own people through in the Cultural Revolution. A friend of mine thinks that this summer China will take all of the people attending the Olympics hostage as they invade Taiwan. Crazy idea. Or is it?
All in all, a good read.