Description
1000 words max for each
these assignments are for two people in the same class.
For this assignment, write a critical review of one of the following books:
- Timothy Brook, Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement (Stanford University Press, 1998).
- Judith Shapiro, Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment Against Revolutionary China (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- Jacob Eyferth, Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots: The Social History of a Community of Handicraft Papermakers in Rural Sichuan, 1920-2000 (Harvard University Press, 2009).
- Gail Hershatter, The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China’s Collective Past (University of California Press, 2011).
- Sigrid Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
- Guobin Yang, The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (Columbia University Press, 2016).
I don't have access for those books, try go online and find a free access
you can choose one book to write 2 assignments, or 2 different books to write (can't be same points)
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
Book Review: Quelling the People- Outline
Thesis Statement: Quelling the People is an outstanding reconstruction of the Tiananmen
Square Massacre and its implications on governance and democracy in China.
I. Introduction
II. Summary
III. Narration
IV. Important aspects
V. Opinion
Surname 1
Name
Professor
Course
Date
Book Review: Quelling the People
Timothy James Brook, a Canadian historian specializing in Chinese Studies, presents
a compelling reconstruction of the events leading to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.
The book provides this reconstruction from eye witnesses and hence leads the reader to
understand the atmosphere, issues, and events occurring during the protests and the massacre.
The purpose of the book is to establish a correct and reasonable recount of the events that
came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The author has used this record to
bring to the table attention on how the government used violence to suppress the Democracy
Movement in China and how this has affected the Chinese people henceforth. While many
books have been written about the massacre, they mostly focus on the politics surrounding
the events. However, Brook uses a simple approach to show how the military used violence
against students and hence steers away from the political claims and arguments of both sides.
The book is organized into eight chapters which effectively guide the reader through
the events and the aftermath based on the recounted experiences and eye witnesses of people
who were involved. The introduction reviews the use of violence against civilians before the
incident and looks into the meaning of the word ‘massacre.’ Brook then adopts a
chronological approach starting from the death of secretary general Hu Yaobang in April and
the tensions that followed. He advances through the days of the massacre and the aftermath
when the suppression was successful. The author does great work to conclude with a review
of the implications of violence on democracy and the background of the same in the Chinese
government.
Surname 2
Brook covers some crucial aspects of the massacre and one of them is in how he
accurately presents the views of participants on what might have led to the stand-off between
the Democracy Movement and the government. In his review of the ‘changing fate’ of
Beijing, Brook points out that “students learned on Tuesday, April 25, that the government
flatly refused to engage in dialogue with them…the students were enraged by the
government’s refusal to regard any of their requests as legitimate” (Brook 29-30). This
analysis of how the students felt and how the relationship between them and the government
was poisoned outlines a clear chronological and causal analysis of the massacre. The author,
therefore, presents a clear analysis of the events leading to the massacre and how they might
have been charged by the relationship between students and the government.
In addition to reviewing the relationship, the other important aspect of this book is its
focus on the violence and the vivid portrayal of its ruthlessness from both sides of the
confrontation. Leaning heavily on eye witnesses, Brook does not try to say who was right or
wrong. Instead, he depicts, with as much accuracy as possible, the events surrounding this
violence and the confrontation between the people and the government. He presents the firstperson accounts of witnesses and how they survived the violence of the army. For instance, a
witness named S. explains that “there was gunfire. Everyone screamed. We hit the dirt road at
the side of the street, crawled to the hedge and dove over the bushes” (Brook 139). Such
narrations increase validity of the stories and present a compelling view of how the witnesses
survived the ordea...
