Blood of Revolution: From the Reign of Terror to the Rise of Khomeini - Softcover

Durschmied, Erik

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559706562 ISBN 13: 9781559706568

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 2003

Synopsis

A survey of major revolts, upheavals, and revolutions of the past two hundred years is drawn from historical texts and eyewitness accounts to offer insight into their actual effects, chronicling such uprisings as the French revolution, Japan's "longest day," and the ousting of the Shah from Iran. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Erik Durschmied is a military historian and award-winning journalist who has been a correspondent for Newsweek as well as the BBC and CBS. He has personally covered wars and revolutions in Cuba, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He divides his ìat-homeî time between Paris and Provence.

From Publishers Weekly

The former Newsweek correspondent who has toyed about with variations on the theme of "What if?" in his speculative histories The Hinge Factor and The Weather Factor settles down here to look at the actual record of the great political revolutions of the last two centuries. It is not a happy story, nor a heroic one. "Genius, courage and creativity are powerful forces," Durschmied concedes; "but so is evil." And, indeed, every one of the great cataclysms described here seems, at some (fairly early) point in its development, to have been transformed into a mad witch's Sabbath of fanatics, opportunists, sadists, conmen and outright lunatics whose single-minded lust for power would have taken Machiavelli's breath away. Durschmied illustrates it all with vivid, journalistic detail: a Parisian hairdresser arranging the coiffure of the Princesse de Lamballe's severed head; the drunken turkey-shoot in which the Bolsheviks assassinated the tsar's family; Pancho Villa's sport of lining up hostages atop railway cars and gunning them down like bowling pins; the snuff films made of the hangings of resistance leaders for Hitler's personal amusement. The author's intent is not primarily analytical, but he makes it clear that political collapses as complete as those detailed here are never the result of simple conquest, militarily or ideologically, and that no ruler is ever overthrown unless he or she is profoundly inept, weak-willed or stupid (e.g., Louis XVI, Nicholas II, the shah of Iran). Durschmied writes wonderfully fluid and engaging accounts. The final chapter, on the Khomeinite revolution in Iran, is particularly timely now. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. First printing 15,000.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1559706562
• ISBN 13: 9781559706568
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408