A Revolution with Major Setbacks
342230
For me, personally I don't recommend the game boy micro. There is not much difference between the GBA Sp (newer edition w/ backlit-2005)and the GB micro. The graphics are about the same, it's just that the micro is a bit better. You can carry a GBA Sp in your pocket just like the micro (It's better because you can fold it). Now if you have an older edition of the GBA Sp (without backlit-2001), then you would notice a dramatic difference in terms of graphics. The GBA Sp appears to be more durable and flexible as its square-like folded capability would not allow much damage compared to the micro's rectangular shape. The Sp will allow you to play all previous games and the sound is much more superb. Thus, I recommend the new version of the GBA Sp (the one with backlit and the graphics are magificent, just as equivalent to the micro) that comes in shiny, light blue or black.
1384242
Amongst the most crucial points in European history is the 1848 revolutions and the conservative reaction following: fundamental to understanding the European world up until the self-immolation of 1914. This book does little to advance thinking on how the Bismark revolution was a contributor and his place in the wider political context.
2903014
This is a very good movie. I see a message embedded in this movie. That when the individual states are taken over by the central government, through intimidation or force, the rights of the population are gone until a revolution happens taking back the rights of the states and individuals for self determination.
4727521
This is what has happened to the country. It is very sad !!
2081933
An incrediblly detailed account of those important years leading up to our nation's revolution.
1805653
It's so damn depressing. Contemporary Africa is an unfortunate European creation where history repeats itself again and again. It would appear that the only solution will be a major worldly cataclysm  that erases all borders and resets all of man's prior works.
2254269
Good story with good insight into Revolutionary times and the effect on entire families
1160361
McPhee's book is a useful overview of the major events that transpired in France between the convocation of the Estates General in 1789 and the collapse of the Thermidorian regime. The author focuses on four major themes: 1) the rise of political cultre and the public sphere 2) gender 3) the origins of the Terror and 4) the role of the "crowd/people" in shaping events.

Although the development of revolutionary culture is addressed, it appears mostly as an afterthought. Well suited (and intended) for adaptation as a college textbook,  the book is recommended for undergraduates (and general readers) who are looking for a quick summary of the Revolutionary era.
2720044
Bitterly contested Presidential elections are almost as old as the American republic.  Edward Larson builds a strong case that the John Adams Thomas  Jefferson contest of 1800 introduced many of the features that we now take for granted in national campaigns.  The contestants were two leading members of the political elite, each possessed of an impressive resume.  Once close friends, they had fallen out over the constitutional meaning of the federal balance, over such economic issues as banks and taxes, and over the best policies to protect a vulnerable America from the great powers of their time. Underlying the struggle were deep social issues reflecting the differing meanings of democracy in North and South. Internal factional struggles for party control, especially the maddening attempts of Alexander Hamilton to exploit an undeclared war with France, add texture and complexity. The author traces the emergence of a nominating process, shows the rise of position papers and a highly partisan press, watches party managers target doubtful electoral votes, and even identifies the first October surprise. Its all so far back in time, and yet it all sounds so very modern.
2403416
The average American simply does not understand the insidious ways the history of  our great country has been maligned and re-written to suit the new agenda. Modern leftists are telling a new story, however, contradicting traditional veneration for America in order to convince a nation to author its own destruction and unmake the America that is here now. Our colleges are over ridden with liberals that "teach" (or brainwash) the young minds in America and get them to believe the lies that them make them feel ashamed to live in this once great nation of ours. After seeing this film I challenge those that see it to do their homework and learn the truth our founding fathers lived through in order to estblish the United States of America.
3020385
This book (like Hayek's Road to Serfdom) will require you to frequently turn back to the publication information to convince yourself that it wasn't published in the last few years.  It remains very topical, but is no longer the radical prescription it once was -- by force of will and arguement, Friedman has begun to revolutionize society.
4860367
I found this history lesson a perfect example of what happens when opportunities for gain are denied to portions of the public.  Whether the restrictions are caused by Class as in this case or lack of jobs and poor educational opportunities as in today's world the resulting chaos is the same. Leaders will rise and desperate followers will be there to support them
1558152
In recent years there has been a persistent drumbeat denouncing the Cultural Revolution, Mao, Maoism, and, in particular, education in the forty or so years of China's socialism. At the heart of the issue is the dismissal of class struggle, the eradication of the memory that elements of the cultural revolution, especially in educational areas, benefited millions of people who were otherwise completely disenfranchised--from goods,property, and knowledge too.
Andreas' careful examination of events at Tshinghua University, one of the key universities in China that, ultimately, fashioned some of China's top leaders today, shows that the events of the Cultural Revolution can be analyzed in sensible ways that illuminate what happened and, importantly, why things are as they are today.

Andreas employees a template that readers unfamiliar with the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the Great Leap, the CR, and the aftermath, will find helpful while experts will find the current misleading, well-funded, scholarship decrying the CR as "simply crazy hysteria" debunked in sophisticated, well-referenced ways. Activist readers will be handed problems that the should consider, problems the Chinese faced and they will too, that is, what of intellectual elites within the movement, what of the children of former ruling classes, what of class consciousness itself? My only complaint is about something beyond Andreas' control--our somewhat new habit of using endnotes rather than bottom-of-the-page footnotes. As one who reads footnotes with care, I can only hope other scholars can upend this unfortunate nod to the impatient or careless.
2298435
Yes, things did go wrong. You should read so you Know what the Government doesn't want you to know. Some are still missing. Get it.
2792145
The Cultural Revolution has failed, at least on an ideological level. The revisionist plot to overthrow communism has succeeded, and capitalism (with Chinese characteristics) is now the economic model of the People's Republic. What has not failed operated on a more practical level, the securing of Mao's unchallenged power. This worked so well his successors are in control a half-century later.
The Cultural Revolution ('66-'76) was a mass social upheaval of students and workers unleashed by Mao against his perceived enemies within the party and army. During the Great Leap Forward ('58-'62) command economy and collective farming starved some thirty million people to death. Mao's political capital was nearly expended and comrades were emboldened to criticize his policies. It was at once a brilliant and ruthless gambit to weaponize the people against his political enemies.
When the Cultural Revolution was over the party was purged and the comrades were chastened, notably Mao's No. 2, President Liu Shaoqi (who died under Mao's arrest) and future Chairman Deng Xiaoping (who survived to succeed Mao). The student uprisings nearly led to civil war, until Mao dialed them down and declared the military in charge by late '68. Mao's cult of personality had now been unquestionably established and backed by his junta he was worshipped throughout the land.
In the later phases of the revolution, the people too were purged, by military-led revolutionary committees. Ordinary citizens were denounced, interrogated, imprisoned or executed by their peers for perceived or fabricated class crimes. Professionals, teachers, and students were banished from large cities to be re-educated in the countryside. There they labored and starved amongst a peasant population unable and unwilling to absorb them. As the years ground on the revolution devolved into an endless cycle of upheaval whose ultimate purpose was to intimidate and control the people.
This third and last volume of a trilogy on post-WWII China is told by historian Dikotter mainly through memoirs, news articles and PRC archives recently made available. The memoirs run a range from popular accounts such as Wild Swans to unpublished diaries. Anecdotes and data are pasted together like snippets in a scrapbook, arranged chronologically to form a narrative. This becomes a formidable wall of information, and there is an absence of analysis apart from interjected comments. Readers are left to their own conclusions, although the events often speak for themselves.
The book does not take an overtly polemical stance, although some may assert that it does. The author wrote prior works on the positive aspects of the opium trade and Republican China, and is a card carrying member of the Hoover Institution. Is Dikotter a red-baiter or Mao hater? Interviews on NPR and the South China Post note the dilemma he faced was "the level of horror to present". The book has a sensational tenor at times. Perhaps it is the extremity of the era, but it is also the focus of the author. Dikotter reflects "to be silent risks complicity", a line of thought once expressed by Elie Wiesel.
What is described in this book is so troubling that unless one denies its veracity, one must criticize the regime that made it possible. The hardest lesson may not be what an unchecked leader can do to his people, but rather what an unchecked people can do to each other. It is a disturbing portrait of the events that unfolded.
2539519
David McCullough does an excellent job of providing a general overview of the American Revolution in the year 1776.  The book begins in England with King George III speaking to Parliament and declaring his resolve to destroy the insurrection. It then heads on to Boston and the siege there showing the confusion on both sides of the war.  After the evacuation of Boston we see the invasion of New York in very good detail.  This tracks Washington's retreat and subsequent defeats in Canada and Lee's capture.  The final part of the book focuses on Trenton and Princeton attacks.  My biggest complaint and the reason this book gets three stars is the analysis is almost nonexistent. It tells the story but really jumps around and does not present a logical progression.  I am a big fan of McCullough's other books such as Adams or Truman but this one was a letdown.  If you really want to look at this I suggest reading Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fisher.  If you are just starting out reading the American Revolution this is a fine book to start with but if you really want to delve into the issues look elsewhere.
2293567
This book is a gripping analysis of what has gone wrong in American society to produce the gap between rich and poor that is easily the widest in the developed world, and according to the author, the biggest wealth divide in the entire world. It's a frightening read. It traces the unwillingness to enfranchise and educate black Americans from slavery and the Civil War to Jim Crow to today's mass incarceration. It shows how the unwillingness of Southern states to accept black Americans as citizens, or grant them even minimal benefits--like Social Security which most black Americans didn't get until the 1950s--has also held back poor whites. If you travel in Europe, and you see the shimmering mass transportation system, the free universities, the low crime rates, and the national health care systems, you will have to compare it with the hollowed-out Rust Belt cities of today's America. It's obvious why upward mobility has died in America, and the dream of a vibrant middle class, low infant mortality rate, and longer life span has moved to Europe.