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49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The American Revolution Moves East, October 11, 2007
This is a history of the last 12 years of the 18th century, which, according to historian Jay Winik, was a period which set the world firmly on the path of human rights, human equality, freedom, and representative government. Beginning in fits and starts with the American Revolution, it the moves east to France, and finally to Poland, which at the time was under Russian control. Of the three, the American Revolution was the most successful; the French Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the ancien regime and lasted for about a decade, but was eventually put down by Napoleon; and the liberal experiment in Poland was suppressed before it even got started by Catherine the Great.
We have long been aware of the kinship between the French and American Revolutions; both were born of Enlightenment ideas put into practice. Many of the main players - Jefferson, Lafayette, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin - participated on both sides of the Atlantic. What is new and novel about this work is that Winik shows how these two revolutions were more interconnected than previously thought, and how they were connected with the events in Poland and points east. The world that Winik describes is one in which people and ideas "freely crossed and recrossed borders." The beginnings of globalization, one might say.
In 1789 the American Constitution was ratified, although contentious at the time, it remains our founding and governing document to this day. It was a success by anyone's standards. As these events were unfolding, the European continent was looking on with bated breath. They were waiting to see if the masses would rise up and demand their rights as citizens. The French, during this same year, were storming the Bastille. This affair turned out to be much more bloody than its American counterpart. Americans had the good fortune of being able to start with a clean slate on a new continent. They also had very good leadership from some outstanding individuals such as George Washington. The French had none of the above. They were bogged down with a long history of strife and violence. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, written by Lafayette and Jefferson, was an admirable document and it guided the revolutionary struggle for almost a decade. But with Napoleon's coup d'etat its ideals, along with the Revolution, fell by the wayside.
The next ripple of the revolutionary wave moving eastward is in Poland. Being under Russia's control, it was anxious to break free and establish a republic of its own. The leader of this revolt was Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution. Kosciuszko thought he could finesse a peaceful American-style transformation of Poland. Catherine the Great, purportedly an enlightened monarch, saw things differently. She fretted a bloody French-style upheaval would take place, given that the circumstances in Poland were similar to those in France. She decided to crush the Polish revolt and take that country as well as Russia in an autocrtic direction. Russia remain backward and oppressed until the its violent revolution of 1917.
This is a very long book (695 pages) and there are long sections that have no obvious connection to the theme of revolutions. For example, there is a lengthy account of Russia's war with the Ottoman Empire. It is interesting if one is studying imperial conquests, but not relevant to the subject at hand. Nevertheless, this is an interesting work that suggests how interconnected the world was even before our globalized era.
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55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece, September 11, 2007
This book is riveting. Just as Jay Winik changed the way we see the end of the Civil War in April 1865, he's done it again for the Founding period in The Great Upheaval. America was never isolated from the rest of the world--from the moment of its birth it was enmeshed in events in Revolutionary France and far-off Russia. Winik exquisitely recreates this world--from the tortured in-fighting of our nation's founders, to the bloodshed of the French Terror, to Catherine the Great's Russian armies making (ultimately futile) war on Islam. Woven into these events is also a heart-breaking history of slavery and a fantastic look inside the heart of the Islamic Ottoman empire. I was engrossed by Winik's renditions of not just the Americans, like Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams and their epic struggles to build a nation, but also his depictions of Catherine the Great--so vital to these times and so often ignored, as well as the Louis XVI and Marie Antionette, Napoleon, and Robespierre. Unike too many books, which are great only for the first 50 pages, this one builds with drama--the French Revolutionaries actually sought to start a rebellion on American soil and George Washington believed that America's envoys to France had been guillotined. But beyond the incredible story of holy war, revolution, and fierce rebellion inside the U.S., the lessons from this book stay with you: In Russia, imperial hubris drove flawed crusades against the Islamic world. In France, the political opposition guillotined their opponents. In America, George Washington learned to tolerate them--and taught others to do the same. This lesson of tolerance, of respecting divergent views, of balance and compromise in the face of the most bitter disputes is one the nation can desperately use again today. But these lessons can also give us hope. The Great Upheaval is a masterpiece, and it couldn't have arrived at a better time.
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better Than APRIL 1860, September 11, 2007
Jay Winik's newest book, The Great Upheaval, is better than his award-winning April 1860 only because the pleasure of reading it lasts so much longer at over 600 pages. This history of the last decade of the 18th century, which juxtaposes events taking place in the United States, France and Russia, will make many schools and universities rethink the way they teach American and modern European history.
In most learning institutions these subjects are treated in separate courses. Winik's thesis challenges that approach. He asserts, and then proves beyond doubt, that events in these three countries during this time had considerable effect on one another. He artfully explains how in a comprehensive work that obviates the need for three separate courses by alternating chapters that artfully picture for us those interrelations.
Benjamin Franklin knew everyone who was anyone in the period during the French Revolution. Catherine the Great had Voltaire and other philosophes in her pocket. Polish nobility played at a role approaching that of La Fayette in the American Revolution. The war between Islam and the Infideles was a hot, not a Cold War.
For anyone interested in any part of this historical period, this book is a must. And if your interest starts with only one of these three countries, I guarantee that you won't be skipping any chapters; you will quickly become a convert to Winik's position that you cannot understand events within your country of interest without understanding what was happening elsewhere.
For anyone who loves to read history when it is not dryly presented, you will be overwhelmed at the pleasure of reading this just for fun.
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