This book is the outcome of conference panels at the Third International Convention of Asia Scholars held in Singapore in August 2003, events that brought together scholars from the USA, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Australia who specialize on the boycott movement of early twentieth-century China. Because many prior studies about the boycott movement already exist, my principal interest is in what new points of view this Chinese-language volume presents. To that end, I will first introduce a brief outline of each paper.

In the first chapter, “Protest movement in pre-modern China: people's collective protest in cities of Ming-Qing China”, Wu Renshu first analyses acts of collective protest in Ming-Qing China and then discusses continuity and contrast between protest in pre-modern and modern times. The primary reasons for protest in Ming-Qing China were economic: at the heart of collective protests were people who felt they needed to fight for their daily survival. Wu notes that the tools of publicity (handouts, placards, etc.) and the site of mobilization (a temple or huiguan 会館, the so-called “native place association” or “provincial guild”) continued to be employed in the protests of modern China. In the early twentieth century, the protest movement spread all over China, and thus the scale of protest developed from “regional” to “national”. During that process the most important change that took place was not in method but in people's sentiment, that is, that modern nationalism had awoken the spirit of revolution.

In Chapter 2, “The Anti-Russia movement and consciousness of ‘middle society’”, Sang Bing points out that in the early twentieth century the concept of a “middle society” became a strong ideological weapon among new elites and students involved in the political movement. Sang analyses the arguments formulated by student intellectuals as they became increasingly aware of the important role they could play in publishing newfound knowledge and educating the lower class. The possibility of forming a “middle society” was a “hot” topic in early twentieth-century China.

In Chapter 3, “The 1905–1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott: a reconsideration from the perspective of social movement”, Wang Guanhua first explores the theoretical trends of Western social science concerning the phenomena of social movements, whether “mass” or otherwise. Regarding the origin and development of the boycott movement, Wang takes issue with prior studies, which, in his opinion, placed too much emphasis on the role of nationalism. Instead, Wang argues, the movement was initiated and strengthened by many disparate actors such as merchants, students and intellectuals, each possessing their own set of motives. The movement had no clear leader, but was supported by the informal network that existed between China and overseas Chinese communities.

In Chapter 4, “Modern images of popular society in Late Qing China: the Anti-Russia movement and the Anti-American Boycott movement”, Jin Xijiao points out that historical concepts employed in narrating modern Chinese history remain controversial. In analysing Late Qing society, he prefers as the key concept “popular society” rather than “civil society”. Jin argues that though the intellectual aim of the movement was political reform, people joined the movement because they saw it as leading to an escape from the misery of their lives. Jin's focus thus is on the viewpoints and motivations of ordinary people.

In Chapter 5, “The Daini Tatsumaru Incident and its historical background”, Seiichiro Yoshizawa considers the boycott triggered by the Daini Tatsumaru Incident as one of a series of Late Qing boycott movements. In order to demonstrate the distinct characteristics of the Daini Tatsumaru Incident, Yoshizawa considers the following issues: (1) rights in territorial waters around Macau, (2) the smuggling of weapons, and (3) the revolutionary party's plans to cause riots. The author then points out how local problems affected the boycott as a national movement.

Chapter 6, Wong Sin Kiong's “Civil boycott movements of Chinese in Malay-Singapore: propaganda and protests in the early twentieth century”, analyses three boycott movements in Malay-Singapore with keen attention to local factors. Wong argues that although revolutionary movements in Malay-Singapore did affect the boycotts, the influence was limited. Like elsewhere, intellectuals played an important leadership role.

Chapter 7, by Chen Laixing, is entitled, “Anti-American and Anti-Japanese Boycott movements and the Chinese merchants of Kobe and Osaka”. Although many studies have been conducted on foreign students and political exiles in Tokyo and Yokohama, little attention has been given to the merchants of Kobe and Osaka. Chen notes that at the time of the Anti-Japanese Boycott of 1908 Kobe was a main port in trade with China, so the Chinese merchants operating there inevitably were affected by the larger context of the Japanese economy. In fact, Chinese merchants in Kobe suffered heavy losses during the boycott, and it placed them in an awkward position. On one hand, they had to seek an income in order to support family members in Japan and China; on the other, as Chinese they felt compelled to support the boycott. Thus each merchant was confronted with the problem of how to negotiate a balance between economics and politics, and between private and public (national) spheres. Chen's chapter is especially sensitive to these very complicated dynamics.

In Chapter 8, “Chinese in Australia and the Anti-Japanese Boycott movement of 1908”, Wu Longyun discusses the Chinese journal published in Australia, Donghuabao 東華報. The author provides an analysis of the principles of its propaganda and speculates as to how it affected the development of the movement. In addition to propaganda, speeches and acts of charity overseen by intellectuals also played an important role in spreading a sense of nationalism among lower-class Chinese in Australia.

In the final chapter, Chapter 9, “The Chinese Empire Reform Association and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott: the transnational connection in China's first nationwide mass movement”, Jane Leung Larson uses newfound material, the Tom Leung papers, to show the details of the relationship between the boycott and the Baohuanghui 保皇会, the “Protect the Emperor Society”. She explains that the Baohuanghui's activities and its transnational network contributed to the rapidity with which the 1905 boycott spread.

Like many scholars, the contributors to this volume recognize that the series of boycott movements in the early twentieth century were epoch-making events in modern Chinese history. The new perspectives they introduce lead to a better understanding of boycotts as a whole. The reasons behind the movements are complicated and manifold, and the contributors remind us of how various historical elements – local and global, political and economical, or involving ordinary people and elites – all furnish different motives for the boycott movement. In other words, this volume is successful in rendering clearly the subtle complications inherent in the boycott movement. Furthermore, as the volume's English title, Civilized Protests, suggests, the collective focal point of the contributors is the civilized expression of nationalism via the movement. Even so, the argument of the “civil society” as applied to modern Chinese history recently has come to be regarded as not particularly fruitful, because it seems overly reliant on a concept borrowed from the West. Indeed, among the volume's authors there is little agreement on how “civilized protests” should best be understood.

Larson introduces an interesting episode in her paper. Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927) instructed members of Baohuanghui to pay attention to the concept of cleanliness, exhorting them to sweep the streets and wear clean clothes and shoes so as not to be despised by Westerners. Though the boycott at the time was peaceful and progressive – that is, “civilized” – Kang likely realized the existence of other incongruities between Western civilization and Chinese habits at the level of daily life. This aspect of “civilization” is not one that would become the theme of a Chinese public demonstration. Yet, needless to say, systematic modern hygiene, as Foucault has argued, changed people's daily life quietly but powerfully.

With regard to methods of mobilizing the protest movement, many contributors paid admirable attention to the publication of local city newspapers. In the early twentieth century there was a Chinese newspaper in almost every Chinatown in the world. As Larson notes, the Baohuanghui owned newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, the USA, Canada, the Philippines, Siam, Java, Hawaii and China. Thus it is understandable that many studies should emphasize the influence these journals may have exerted upon the boycott movement. Yet another possibility may be the converse of that argument, that is, that it was the political events themselves that spurred on the development of publications in China and overseas Chinese communities, ensuring that the ever-shifting languages of politics could easily be followed on a global scale. Such a phenomenon presumes that levels of literacy in China and overseas Chinese communities during the early twentieth century were relatively high. As such, the literacy of middle-class Chinese is a topic that warrants more study.

In speaking about Chinese nationalism, there has been a tendency to construe a common feeling of saving China as uniformly held by the populace, with the role of newspapers and other media being to strengthen that uniformity. But the studies contained in this volume are a reminder of the movement's variety and complexity, especially in contexts of overseas Chinese communities. This is the volume's unique contribution, and it is especially conspicuous among the chapters of the latter half. In that sense, the volume announces an important trajectory for future studies of Chinese nationalism: a long due attentiveness to local circumstances that may have restricted politically and economically Chinese living abroad.