Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement

Eyewitness reports, hospital records and student documents buttress this authoritative study of the birth, development and sudden death of the 1989 Democracy movement in China. The book's centerpiece is a detailed reconstruction of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 3 and 4, 1989. Brook explains the catalytic effect of General Secretary Hu Yaobang's death, defines the rationale behind the student hunger strikes and the goverment's imposition of martial law, and describes the styrofoam statue of the Goddess of Democracy as a ``brilliant gesture'' on the students' part. Brook establishes that between two and three thousand citizzens of Beijing were slaughtered by the People's Army, which was acting on orders from the highest civilian authority (i.e., Deng Xiaoping), and that at one point China was on the brink of civil war as army units threatened to turn against one another. Brook has uncovered detailed material revealing how government propagandists attempted to whitewash the bloody events of Tiananmen Square even as the long process of arrests and repression began. Brook is associate professor of history at the University of Toronto. (Sept.)do you happen to have a spare copy of this one, gen? /pre/alas, no. but ifyou'll give Sam Baker a note requesting this--include author, publisher and pub date, as we get closer to the time when finished books are likely to be available, we'll request a copy for you.gs