Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World

Hall, Simon. Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World. 

The history of the 20th century was fundamentally reshaped by three major political upheavals: the Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions. This book tells the stories of these epoch-defining events by focusing on the parallel, epic journeys at their core. These include Lenin's return to Russia in 1917, Mao's legendary Long March across China, and Fidel Castro's triumphant arrival in Havana. These journeys not only defined the paths of the revolutionary leaders but also laid the groundwork for the profound changes that would transform their respective countries.

In addition to the revolutionary leaders, the book also highlights the journeys of three extraordinary journalists—John Reed, Edgar Snow, and Herbert L. Matthews. Their firsthand accounts from the frontlines were pivotal in shaping the global understanding of these revolutions. By weaving together these six parallel narratives, the author vividly brings these exhilarating events to life. Three Revolutions explores key themes such as the nature of political power, the limits of idealism, and the critical role of the journalist, raising questions that are just as urgent today as they were a century ago.

1919: The Year that Changed America

Sandler, Martin W. 1919: The Year that Changed America. 2019. 192p. ISBN 9781681198019. Available at 973.91 SAN on the library shelves.

1919: The Year That Changed America explores a pivotal year in American history, 1919, when several significant social movements reached critical junctures. The nation grappled with the aftermath of World War I, including the resurgence of violent racism against returning Black soldiers, known as the Red Summer. Simultaneously, the women's suffrage movement celebrated a major victory with the right to vote, while labor movements protested for better working conditions. 1919 also saw a rise in nationalism, fueling a fear of communism, and the implementation of Prohibition.

1919: The Year That Changed America argues that these same issues remain relevant a century later, demonstrating that social progress is not always linear.  The trajectory of these movements is tracked over the past 100 years, highlighting both advancements and setbacks. Examining these historical trends offers a unique perspective on current social issues and provides context for the ongoing pursuit of social change.

Fans of history or those who want understand where our country came from and what work remains to be done will enjoy this well-written story of our past, with challenges that still confront us today.

With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote

Bausum, Ann. With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote. 2004. 111p. ISBN 0-7922-7647-7. Available at 324.6 BAU on the library shelves.

The American Revolution took place around several ideals, one of which being that people who are taxed should be represented. Colonists won the right to vote in their new states, but only males obtained election rights. Women continued to be subservient to their father, then their husbands. In the 1840s, a group of women got together to discuss ways to secure the vote for them, so they could influence laws like property rights and divorce.

Over the course of the next 75 years, women fought against a repressive and conservative government not interested in allowing women to vote. Women organized marches, newspapers, conventions, and lobbied intensely to secure the franchise. They were ridiculed. They were arrested, charged with crimes such as loitering, disturbing the peace, and jailed. They were force-fed when they went on hunger strike. Through it all, women remained in solidarity with one another and pushed forward until changes came.

It took the First World War to really trigger a social shift. The necessity of fighting for democracy abroad by sending millions of soldiers ringed hollow when more than half the population could not vote in the United States. Many women leaders pushed forward and convinced the US Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment, which was soon followed by 36 states, making the Nineteenth Amendment providing women with the right to vote the law of the land.

The women's struggle later inspired the Civil Rights movement of civil disobedience, and led to an increase in female representatives. Throughout the suffragist movement all, women of all socio-economic classes and races fought together and achieved a constitutional victory like no other.

You Are the General

Aaseg, Nathan. You Are the General. 1994. 160p. ISBN 978-1-881508-11-0. Available at 355.03 AAS on the library shelves.

Leaders have to make decisions every day, and often these decisions influence the course of history. In the 20th century, the First and Second World War and the First Gulf War left lasting legacies still affecting us today. This book presents six scenarios from those conflicts, with background information on each and question the decisions made by the leaders at the time. The reader is given the opportunity, with the information on hand, what decision to make, and then read on to see what really happened.

Fans of history will enjoy the ability to play through the scenario and determine if their decisions would have been better than those in charge, or if they would have made the same choices.

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football team

Sheinkin, Steve. Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football team. 2017. 392 mins. ISBN 1-59643-954-8. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

With the NFL celebrating 100 years, the history of football is not complete without mentioning legendary coach Pop Warner and superstar athlete Jim Thorpe. But the story of football is also the story of American repression of Native Americans through Indian Schools and the stated policy of eradicating the "savage" and replacing his culture with that of white America.

A Native American from Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe was always a gifted athlete, but the loss of his twin brother when they were young caused a pain he never truly recovered from. When he arrived at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1904 after stints at other schools, he saw football and decided he had to play. Pop Warner was an average football player who developed innovative tactics and improved the game. He came to Carlisle to guide their football program, and ended up changing the whole game for the better with innovations such as the forward pass and the fake plays.

Pop Warner at first refused to let Jim play, but after observing his speed, Jim joined the Carlisle team and soon became its superstar. Carlisle played against football powerhouses Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, and despite racist taunts and overt persecution of Native Americans, the team steadily improved until it defeated the top four teams in one season and earned an 11-1 record. Jim Thorpe himself participated in the 1912 Olympics, where he won the Pentathlon and the Decathlon, the first Native American to win a gold medal for a country where he was not even considered a citizen. He also played professional baseball and basketball, but it is his performances on the football field, where he was twice nominated as an All-American, where he made a lasting legacy.

This book is the story of two men, but it is also the story of a whole system designed to eliminate Native American voices and cultures. Fans of historical stories and of amazing feats of athleticism will be fascinated to watch how Jim Thorpe and his teammates overcame adversity and racism and fought for the right to be themselves.

20th Century Art, 1910-1920: The Birth of Abstract Art

Gaff, Jackie. 20th Century Art, 1910-20: The Birth of Abstract Art. 2000. 32p. ISBN 978-0-8368-2849-6. Available at 709.04 GAF on the library shelves.

In the 1900s, artists such as the Impressionists and Pablo Picasso had blazed a path away from realism towards more expressive art. This trend continues in the 1910s as artists push the limit of what art is. Cubists moved away from paint as a medium and adopted other media, including using real objects. At the same time, others were experiencing with colors and modernity by showcasing new inventions such as airplanes and new constructions like the Eiffel Tower. Abstract art continued to expand, and drifted even more away from representing reality, instead composing purely visual images with no basis in the real world. Other pre-First World War art movements included Futurism and Vorticism, both of which were concerned with modern life, lines, and angles.

The First World War changed art. Artists went to the front, fought, and died. Many were commissioned to illustrate what they saw, but had to contend with censors. The result were bleak creations that featured muted colors, as no one was in a mood to celebrate. The war and its horrors gave birth to Dadaism, a movement which was anti-everything, and which drove absurdity, like the war itself, to its extreme. The end of the war led to a resumption of abstract art, but artists entered the metaphysical and the dream world. Women artists also emerged at this time and gained a foothold in the world of art. The decade ended with the appearance of Constructivism, where art was married to function so it could provide well as aesthetically pleasing utility.

The Grand Escape

Bascomb, Neal. The Grand Escape: The Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century. 2018. 275p. ISBN 978-1-33814034-7. Available at 940.4 BAS on the library shelves.

During the First World War, captured soldiers were interned in prisoners of war camps. The first duty of a confined soldier was to attempt to escape and rejoin friendly forces. The escape of one or more individual consumed an inordinate amount of resources and manpower for the jailers, which detracted from the war effort. Those soldiers who repeatedly escaped and were captured became known as escape artists, and were sent to the prison camp of Holzminden, reputed to be unescapable.

By 1917, some Allied soldiers had been POWs for over two years. Many were itching to escape and rejoin the fight, especially considering the poor treatment they were receiving from their German guards. In Holzminden, a high concentration of soldiers with previous attempts at escaping made such an attempt all but a certainty. A plan was hatched to dig a tunnel from the officers' barracks to the outside, digging under walls, barb wires, and guards, with the mouth of the tunnel emerging in a rye field.

It took months of planning and digging to secure 60 yards of tunnel, but by July 1918, with the rye harvest only days away, it was time for the escapees to go. This large of an operation had created some rumors around camp, but the Germans never managed to discover the tunnel and the people involved in it. On July 24th, during a dark and stormy night, officers crawled through the tunnel and managed to escape the prison before the tunnel collapsed. In the morning the tunnel entrance was discovered, and roll call revealed that 29 officers had escaped.

Though many were re-captured, ten officers successfully evaded the Germans' search efforts and managed to return to the United Kingdom through Holland. A great nonfiction book, The Grand Escape showcases one of the most daring escape attempt in history! Fans of the First World War will appreciate this little known aspect of the conflict.

World War I: A Political and Diplomatic History of the Modern World

Mann, Tara L., ed. World War I: A Political and Diplomatic History of the Modern World. 2017. 290p. ISBN 978-1-68048-359-8. Available at 940.3 WOR on the library shelves.

European nations have always felt threatened by their neighbors. In the early 1900s, this fear of the other led nations to ally themselves in two large blocks, the Triple Entente of France, the United Kingdom and Russia, and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Both groups were designed to protect members from the other groups. The assassination of the heir to Austria-Hungary in 1914 sparks a war that all projects to be short, but that was anything but. Over the course of four years, millions of soldiers and civilians died, empires collapsed, and military bureaucracies emerged the wring out ever more efficiencies out of the state at the expense of the citizens.

Tensions had been building before, however, and remained even after the conflict was concluded. World War I provides an excellent summary of the war, its causes, and the changed face of Europe and the world when soldiers finally emerged out of the trenches. The war's major events are covered, with a focus on the technologies that changed the battlefield and the human costs associated with such a long and dramatic conflict. It revises the notion that Germany was stabbed in the back by its civilian leadership and allocates faults with all participants, though some more than others. Fans of history will appreciate the extensive details and the shape of relations between these nations throughout this period of history.

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

Hartfield, Claire. A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919. 2018. 208p. ISBN 9781328699046. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

On a sweltering July 27, 1919, five African-American teens left their Chicago tenements near the Union stockyard, and went to the 26th street beach on Lake Michigan. Racial tensions had been simmering in the city for years, but the United States’ entry in the First World War had triggered a labor shortage at the same time as a high demand for meat for troops, and the companies that ran the stockyard recruited heavily among new immigrant groups, and from African-Americans living in the South. Despite the hard living conditions in Chicago, life for African-Americans was generally better than in the South. The return of troops, however, meant that less jobs were available. Thus, race, class, and immigration issues were all intersecting in 1919, making Chicago a powder keg that a single match could easily ignite.

That match came in the form of Eugene Williams and his friends. The teens played in the warm waters, but they did not notice as their raft slowly drifted towards the White beach on 29th street. Though Chicago was not officially segregated, a division between Whites and Blacks had taken place. White beachgoers noticed the kids on what they considered their beach, and they threw rocks. One of them fatally struck Eugene, who did not know how to swim. His death by drowning triggered anger among African-American beachgoers, and this in turn fueled their resentment against the city and its other inhabitants.

Violence soon ensued, with gangs of immigrants chasing African-Americans, bombings rocking Black neighborhoods, and many people being injured and killed. With the city in full riot, thousand of police officers and state militia intervened, but since they mainly protected White neighborhoods, they only served to fuel the anger. Over the course of a week, 15 Whites and 23 African-American men were killed, while hundreds were injured and much property was destroyed. As the heat dissipated, the rioters’ energy also waned, but the anger would continue and eventually lead to the Civil Rights movement and African-American advocacy.

Fans of history will appreciate the details of this dark page and will enjoy explanations that can directly be related to social conditions today.

World War I and the Rise of Global Conflict

Morgan, Elizabeth. World War I and the Rise of Global Conflict. 2017. 104p. ISBN 978-1534560581. Available at 940.4 MOR on the library shelves.

When nations went to war in August of 1914, it was believed that the conflict would be short-lived and contained to Europe. As countries mobilized their armed forces and as battle plans failed to achieve a breakthrough in the first few weeks of the war, however, it became clear to the generals that this would become a war of attrition. On the Western front a stalemate develops as trenches reach from the North Sea to Switzerland, and armies shoot at each other over a desolated No Man’s Land. In the East, the war is more mobile, but the vastness ensures that no triumphant battles are wedged.

As the participants seek to gain the advantage over their enemies, the conflict grows until it encompasses the entire globe, becoming a true world war. Innovations and weapons are developed at a breakneck pace. Curiosities such as the plane and the machine gun now prove deadly. Ever larger battleships cruise the oceans’ waters, hurling massive shells at each other. Lumbering assault vehicles known as tanks crush everything along the way, including barbed wires and trenches, while poison gas causes thousands of victims on both sides.

In the end, the war to end all war only postponed a more violent reckoning two decades. The harsh conditions imposed on Germany by the victors led to resentment, and the despair caused by Great Depression led to Adolf Hitler’s election and march towards the Second World War. This book presents the origins of the conflict, discusses how it became a global conflict, and examines what impacts it had on the world following the 1918 armistice. Fans of history will appreciate the conciseness yet detailed presentation of information, and will be forewarned that such a large conflict could arise out of seemingly small incidents.   

Midnight at the Electric

Anderson, Jody Lynn. Midnight at the Electric. 2017. 227p. ISBN 978-0-06-239354-8. Available at FIC AND on the library shelves.

In 2065, climate change has now irreversibly impacted Earth, and governments everywhere have pooled their resources to build a successful colony on Mars. Only a select few are sent on this one-way trip, hoping to create a new world and restore hope for humanity. Adri is one such lucky person. A teenager from Florida who lost her only family, Adri has no ties left with Earth, and is eager and ready to go. She will complete a grueling training program in Kansas, then head up to Mars with a small team. When she is informed that she will be staying with a relative during her stay in Kansas, Adri is surprised. She didn’t think she had any of them left.

Now living with her great aunt while she trains, Adri discovers a journal in the large farmhouse. In it, Catherine, a girl who lived over a hundred years ago, describes her hopes and fears during the Dust Bowl of 1934, a period that wiped many farms and towns in the middle of the country. Catherine is worried for her sister, who is sick from all the dust she has been breathing. When the Midnight Electric comes to town and promises eternal life, Catherine is desperate enough to spend money she doesn’t have and attempt it for her sister’s sake. Catherine is also intrigued by postcards her mother received decades ago, written by one of her mother’s friend, Lenore, from England.

In 1919, Lenore writes many letters to her best friend who has departed England for Kansas, relating her life and the impact that her brother’s death during World War I had on her family. Lenore describes her hopes and fears, and talks about the man she has met who lives in a run-down cottage on her family’s estate. Lenore missed her chance to immigrate with her friend, but is still hoping to travel to Kansas and be reunited.

The lives of three girls, in three distinct time periods, are about to meet through journals and postcards, showing that eternal life is indeed possible.

Told from three different points of view, each girl's journey is a product of her time, yet remains eerily similar. Fans of light mysteries and of introspective reading will appreciate how the girls' situations are deftly handled and nicely tie in together.

Escape!: The Story of the Great Houdini

Fleischman, Sid. Escape!: The Story of the Great Houdini. 2006. 210p. ISBN 0-06-085094-9. Available at B HOU on the library shelves.

Dead for almost a hundred years, Harry Houdini remains one of the greatest magicians to ever practice the art of the illusion. Known for his escape artist routine, Houdini was also an accomplished pilot (the first one to fly a plane in Australia), a movie pioneer, a debunker of pseudo-scientific experiments, and a self-taught didactic individual who took the world by storm and never accepted “no” as an answer.

Erik Weisz was born to a Jewish family in Budapest in 1876 in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Emigrating to the United States in 1878 to rejoin his father, who had arrived earlier, they settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. Already a showman by age 9, Weisz changed his name to Houdini to honor his role-model, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin and performed anywhere he could. Working with his younger brother, he met his wife, Bess, and soon the two were married and part of an act called the Houdinis. His escape routine finally attracted the attention of a show promoter, and soon the Houdinis were traveling throughout the United States and Europe.

While in Europe Houdini continued to study locks and perfected several acts. Returning to the United States, he started a magic monthly, the Conjuror’s Monthly Magazine, filled the house wherever he performed, and became involved in making movies to promote his act. During one of these movies he learned to fly a plane. He then purchased an aircraft, shipped it to Australia, and became the first one to fly a plane down under.

Always protecting his brand, Houdini sued his imitators, and sought to debunk spiritualists. Still touring in the 1920s, Houdini was stricken by a ruptured appendix and died in Detroit. An avid collector of all things magical throughout his life, Houdini left his collection of books and pamphlets to the Library of Congress. The greatest escape artist could not escape from death, but left behind an impressive legacy.

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World

Armstrong, Jennifer. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World. 2011. 227 mins. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

The age of exploration seemingly came to an end when the South Pole was reached in December 1911. Sir Ernest Shackleton had dreamt of being the first one there, but with Roald Amundsen’s team getting there, followed soon after by the Scott expedition, there seemed nothing left to do. Shackleton and his backers decided then to be the first ones to cross Antarctica on food and with dog sleds. With England at war with Germany, the expedition almost did not happen, but the prestige of the country demanded it. Aboard Endurance, a ship specially designed to sail the ice-covered waters of the southernmost continent, 28 sailors, researchers, and scientists embarked on what became a story of survival and triumph over nature.

Despite being summer in Antarctica, ice prevented Endurance from reaching the continent, and before long the ship became encased in ice. With nothing to do, the crew endured and panned on patiently waiting until the following summer. When the ice began pushing against the ship, however, it became clear it would not survive the winter. With only three small boats, the crew had to make a hard decision. Should they attempt reaching the continent, or should they sail back to the closest land, Elephant Island, some 600 miles across the most treacherous and dangerous seas? Shackleton and his crew abandoned the expedition and managed to arrive on Elephant Island. Shackleton himself and five crew members then boarded the sturdiest of their three small craft and sailed 800 miles across open seas to South Georgia, to reach a human settlement and organize a rescue of the people left on Elephant Island.

An amazing and true story of survival and heroics, Shackleton’s expedition did not complete its goal of crossing the Antarctic, but they demonstrated that humans can survive the worst that Earth can offer if they work together. Filled with pictures taken during the expedition, this book will be appreciated by fans of harrowing true stories.

Come On In, America: The United States in World War I

Osborne, Linda Barrett. Come On In, America: The United States in World War I. 2017. 170p. ISBN 1-41972378-2. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

Starting in the 1890s, the industrial and economic might of the United States began to exert itself. As the world powers collided in 1914, none of them could imagine how long and destructive the war would be. As it dragged on, however, both sides fighting in Europe, the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire against the Allies of Britain, France, Italy, and Russia, hoped to keep the United States out of the war. The Allies purchased war material from the Americans, but a majority of Americans did not want to get involved. With large immigrant populations coming from both sides, the country had divided loyalties.

With a British blockade of Germany, the Germans announced unrestricted submarine warfare. The sinking of the Lusitania with 1,200 casualties including over 120 American victims, moved the country ever so closer to war. Further submarine attacks were enough to trigger the United States’ entry in World War I on the side of the Allies, and the arrival of millions of men and equipment tipped the scale to an Allied victory.

But even while Americans were fighting for Democracy against Empires in Europe, there were battles to be fought here in the United States. Racism and segregation were still in effect and were viciously enforced. Women could not vote. Workers had few rights. Big businesses and banks were getting rich. When war was declared, people who did not agree immediately became suspect of being subversives and traitors. How could Americans reconcile themselves between the values they were fighting for and the way they lived at home?

This book explores not only the history of the United States’ entry and participation in World War I, but also the impact the war had at home on the country’s institutions, businesses, and people.

One For Sorrow: A Ghost Story

Hahn, Mary Downing. One For Sorrow: A Ghost Story. 2017. 293p. ISBN 978-0-544-81809-5. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

In 1918, Annie is about to start 6th grade at a new school, and she is nervous. What will people think of her there? She will have to make new friends and learn how to survive in a brand new social structure. With the Great War in full swing, times are tenses and prejudices against German immigrants rampant. Annie is fortunate that both of her parents are employed. She has nice toys and wears new clothes. Others are not so lucky.

On her first day of school, Anne meets some of the other six graders, but before she’s able to introduce herself to a group of girls led by a redhead named Rosie, she is intercepted by Elsie, who immediately tries to make Anne her friend. Elsie is pushy and she makes sure that Annie does not play with the other kids during recess. She even invites herself over to Annie’s house, and wiggles an invitation for dinner out of Annie’s mother. Annie is frightened by Elsie, and she wishes she had never met her.

Unfortunately for Elsie, on top of being pushy, her father is German. Elsie is thus ridiculed at school for being slow and for being a Kaiser-lover. When Elsie becomes sick, Annie seizes the opportunity and begins hanging out with Rosie and her friends. Upon Elsie’s return, she attempts to get Annie to play with her, but Annie refuses, and she soons becomes another one of Elsie’s tormentors.

At about the same time, the Spanish Influenza begins to strike down residents indiscriminately. Soon families are quarantined and people die. Even the funeral parlors can’t keep up. When Annie and her friends come upon Elsie sitting alone on a swing in a park, they harass her and sing a mean song before ripping away her breathing mask. Elsie contracts the flu and dies. Annie is stricken with remorse. Following an sledding accident in the cemetery, Annie becomes haunted by Elsie, who swears to destroy Annie’s life. With a ghost only she can see affecting the real world, Annie soon finds herself in a psychiatric institute. Can Annie figure a way to make it up to Elsie before her own life is ruined?

Hahn serves another dose of spooky in this well-written tale partly inspired by stories her own mother told her of this time period. Fans of Closed for the Season and Deep, Dark and Dangerous will appreciate this new creepy tale.