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The
revolutions of 1989 are one of those years in history—similar to 1848 and
1968—where a global understanding of causes, events, players, and consequences
is perhaps obvious, but even imperative to unravel similarities, differences,
and influences in an incredibly significant year of reform, revolution, and
hope when millions of people took to the streets to make changes in their
countries. This short book should soon be a focus for anyone interested in
understanding and teaching about these comparative issues. As a high school
teacher of contemporary history, I hope to persuade my department head to
order this spectacular book. It is a good read, not the least
because Kenney makes clear how forces governing global revolutions were
intertwined and offers intriguing case studies to illuminate that process.
Kenney begins
with a succinct (twenty page) overview of connections to prior
revolutions—most importantly that of 1968—and places these revolutionary
changes, as well as the counterrevolutionary ones, in global and generational
context by looking at the role of political activists and the different methods
that they used to achieve their goals and the opposition that they met by their
respective government leaders. Kenney is well read in terms of the events of
1989 and of the dynamic of revolutions themselves. He correctly cites the
variety of influences of these collective revolutions: cultural values, ideas,
leaders, movements, politics, and technologies.
Kenney then
examines individual movement leaders in terms of the spread of their
beliefs, not only in the context of ideas, but also of the global events
of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In so doing he is careful to place these
ideas in terms of a reform of capitalism and/or communism, not as has sometimes
been done in the popular press, as a repudiation of socialism. Many
of these leaders and supporters were socialists. Kenny demonstrates
this through short readings from Czech Vaclav Havel from 1978,
Chinese Wei Jingsheng from 1978, South African Desmond Tutu from 1980, Iranian
Mehdi Bazargan from 1983, Chilean Julieta Kirkwood from 1983, Burmese Aung San
Suu Kyi from 1988, and Russian Mikhail Gorbachev from 1987.
Kenney carefully deconstructs these revolutions through six case studies: Poland, the
Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine, and, finally, China, which serves as
the counter example where the end was not as positive as it was in the other
five situations (that is the bulk of the book: 120 pages). He supports his
arguments with four documents per case (except for Poland where he cites
five) each of which is prefaced by a short and useful overview, as
well as questions to consider as one reads or discusses them, such as why these
particular activists choose political
activism. He reveals similarities in the first five cases, as
well as transnational influences.
Kenney concludes with a chronology from
1968–1995 and ten general/global questions. These questions address
issues such as causes, the role of supporters, symbols, philosophies, the
ability of activists to compromise with government leaders, outside influences,
the role of non-violence, the speed of revolution, comparisons with
earlier revolutions of the 20th century, and consequences of revolutionary
action in the 21st century. He also provides a short bibliography. By
placing all of the revolutions discussed in broad historical
context as well as contemporary global ones, this book will become a
superb tool for teaching and learning about these fascinating years.
My only criticism of the book is that Kenney (or his publisher)
has included only five illustrations: one for Poland, one for
the Philippines, and three for Chile; the visual learners among us (that
is at least a quarter of us!) would have benefited from more graphic
illustrations of the similarities and differences among the
revolutions that he discusses.
James A. Diskant teaches at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics
and Science in Boston, MA; he is World
History Connected's editor for Pioneering New Classroom Approaches. He can
be contacted at james.diskant@verizon.net |
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