Hey all, can anyone recommend to me materiel covering Chinese history in the specific context of the Boxer Rebellion through the creation of the People's Republic of China? It occurs to me that I don't have any substantial reference for Chinese history in the 20th century outside of Chang Kai-Shek or Mao, and that just won't do.
Additionally, on a tangent--are there any decent films on these eras, fictional or otherwise, that aren't terribly Hollywooded? I've seen 57 Days at Peking and assume it to be rubbish, but beyond that I don't know much about what exposure might exist in movies on this era.
I strongly recommend Spencer's Search for Modern China, it's a very accessible and concise history of China from the Opium Wars all the way through the early 1990s.
As the other commentator mentioned, Spence is the Greatest Living Authority on modern China, and Search is the standard text. He also wrote a few other books that cover the area you're looking at to varying degrees. David J. Silbey's The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China might help you, as would Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen, and Forgotten Ally: China's WWII 1937-1945 by Mitter. Stillwell and the American Experience in China 1911-1945 is Tuchman's classic, but somewhat dated work (be warned she wasn't a China scholar), and China Hands is the memoir of the guy who was the eventual ambassador to China under HW Bush. This is what I can think of off the top of my head, but you might ask one of the flaired users as well, starting with the AMA panel from the AMA on East Asia in the 20th Century 2 years back.