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eBook The Long March download

by Shuyun Sun

ISBN: 0007194803
Author: Shuyun Sun
Publisher: Harper Perennial (March 1, 2007)
Language: English
Pages: 400
ePub: 1286 kb
Fb2: 1912 kb
Rating: 4.6
Other formats: mbr txt azw lrf
Category: History
Subcategory: Asia

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Sun Shuyun travels the route of the Long March interviewing its survivors to try to get at a better understanding of what really happened

Sun Shuyun travels the route of the Long March interviewing its survivors to try to get at a better understanding of what really happened. She feels disappointment and betrayal at some of the things she learns, but ultimately emerges with greater admiration for those who made the Long March. This book is filled with tragedy, suffering, and despiccable cruelty but amidst the suffering, the goodness of its heroes stands out even brighter. This book on the Long March by the first organized Chinese communist in 1934-36 will explain a lot about why China is today what it is. The book is not one person's understanding as to what happened.

скачать книгу бесплатно. The Red Army continued to supply itself with the most up-to-date weapons from Chiang's defeats – 20,000 rifles in the Second Campaign; and more equipment of every kind in the Third and Fourth. In 1933 and 1934 alone, Chiang spent nearly 60 million silver dollars importing state-of-the-art rifles, artillery and planes from America and Europe, but most of these ended up in the hands of the Communists. All the stories of success in previous campaigns were beginning to trouble Huang, as they had been stuck in trenches for weeks, with bombs.

Sun Shuyun travels the route of the Long March interviewing its survivors to try to get at a better understanding of what .

Sun Shuyun travels the route of the Long March interviewing its survivors to try to get at a better understanding of what really happened.

Seventy years later Sun Shuyun set out to retrace the Marchers’ steps. The rugged landscape has changed little. The real story of the March, the most vivid pictures, come from the veterans whom Sun Shuyun has found. Her greatest difficult was in wrestling with the scenes lodged in her mind since childhood, part of the upbringing of every Chinese. She follows their trail through all those harsh miles, discovers their faith and disillusion, their pain and their hopes, and also recounts how many suffered even after the March’s end in 1936. The Long March’ was an epic journey of endurance, even more severe than history books say, and courage against impossible odds.

think of the Long March; if you feel tired, think of our revolutionary forebears.

Sun Shuyun is a Chinese writer. She was born in China in the 1960s, graduated from Beijing University and won a scholarship to Oxford

Sun Shuyun is a Chinese writer. She was born in China in the 1960s, graduated from Beijing University and won a scholarship to Oxford. Her books include :"Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud" (in which she retraces the journey of the 7th century Chinese monk Xuanzang):"" :"A Year in Tibet", a book made in conjunction with the BBC documentary "A Year in Tibet".

by. Shuyun Sun. Publication date. China - History - Long March, 1934-1935. inlibrary; printdisabled; ; china. Kahle/Austin Foundation.

Every nation has its founding myth, and for modern China it is the Long March.In 1934, the fledgling Communist Party and its 200,000 strong armies were forced out of their bases by Chiang Kaishek and his National troops.Walking more than 10,000 miles over mountains, grassland and swamps, they suffered appalling casualties and ended up in the remote barren North. Just one-fifth survived; they went on to launch the new China in the heat of revolution. A legend was born. Justified by a remarkable feat, the Long March was also a triumph of propaganda, for Mao and for the revolution.Seventy years later Sun Shuyun set out to retrace the Marchers' steps. The rugged landscape has changed little. Her greatest difficult was in wrestling with the scenes lodged in her mind since childhood, part of the upbringing of every Chinese. On each stage of her journey, she found hidden stories: the ruthless purges, the terrible toll of hunger and disease, the fate of women on the March, the huge number of desertions, the futile deaths.The real story of the March, the most vivid pictures, come from the veterans whom Sun Shuyun has found. She follows their trail through all those harsh miles, discovers their faith and disillusion, their pain and their hopes, and also recounts how many suffered even after the March's end in 1936.`The Long March' was an epic journey of endurance, even more severe than history books say, and courage against impossible odds. It is a brave, exciting and tragic story. Sun Shuyun tells it for the first time, as it really happened.

Comments: (7)

Fecage

This book offers two big draws:

1. A history of the Long March, a crucial segment in the development of the Chinese Communist Party, the rise of Mao Zedong to power, and the eventual emergence of the People's Republic of China.
2. A comparison between the official history taught in Chinese schools and through popular media and the unofficial history now emerging from many previously suppressed records and interviews.

It's obvious why anyone should take interest in the development of China. The most populous nation in the world with one of the fastest developing economies is worth getting to know. What may be less obvious is why it's worth understanding their founding myths and how those founding myths were created. American culture has founding myths as well, stories from the revolution, from the Protestant Reformation, Bible stories, etc. These myths provide us with a sense of group identity, a sense of the meaning of our lives. But often the historical evidence and the stories as popularized in our culture disagree.

Sun Shuyun travels the route of the Long March interviewing its survivors to try to get at a better understanding of what really happened. She feels disappointment and betrayal at some of the things she learns, but ultimately emerges with greater admiration for those who made the Long March.

This book is filled with tragedy, suffering, and despiccable cruelty but amidst the suffering, the goodness of its heroes stands out even brighter. Sun's achievement is to have revitalized an outdated, propagandized story that would otherwise be consigned to the flames by the cynical of present and future generations. She has retold the story in a way that those jaded by communist rhetoric can appropriate it, adopting the heroes as their own. She has given them a past that they can be proud of, and not because she invented it, but because she found it waiting for her.

This ability to make of the past a new story of hope in a time that seems determined to rid itself of the past is a model for non-Chinese as well, for though our media and histories are not controlled like China's, our stories are in need of updating and reappropriation. Some simply shrug history off: Who needs a story? But they're kidding themselves. Stories provide us with our identity, our sense of unity, our purpose. Even those who reject their past are telling a story, a story of rebellion against their past. And if that is all that remains for them to do, so be it. But if, on the other hand, there is some good to be rescued from the past, then that good is well worth seeking out and clinging to.

Sun's Long March is an excellent example of such a good. It is honest and engaging. It weaves a narrative whole out of individual parts. It interweaves past memory with present reality, creating a rich tapestry of cultural meaning. I highly recommend this book.

Kecq

Seventy years after the Long March, a young Oxford educated Chinese journalist decided to retrace the route used by the Red Army in its epic 8,000 mile retreat. Along the way, she stopped to interview survivors of the Long March. What she discovered in these interviews was very different from the propaganda about the Long March she had learned while growing up in China. The survivors turned out to be ordinary people with extraordinary stories of hardship and perserverence. They were not the cardboard heroes that the Communist propogandists had created after the March. As a Westerner, it is interesting to learn how surprised the journalist was by learning that the Communist Party had lied to her.

This book was very different than what I had expected. I thought I was purchasing a straight historical narrative of the Great March. I was surprised by the how much the modern journalist's story was included in the book. It was not what I expected but nevertheless I enjoyed learning about how a young Chinese journalists interacts with her country's history. Ultimately, the final value for me of this book is that it makes me want to read Edgar Snow's "Red Star Over China."

Malhala

This book on the Long March by the first organized Chinese communist in 1934-36 will explain a lot about why China is today what it is. The book is not one person's understanding as to what happened. The author actually retraced the paths of the 3 armys and personally interview more that a dozen survivors as to what really took place (as distinct from Hollywood-like recreations). The book is capivating and reads easily - the author is a professional writer, Oxford trained. Being born in China, Bejing University graduate, a woman and a jounalist, it would be hard to find a more qualified to personally interview and discuss the March face-to-face with men and women survivors with the ease and thouroughness presented in this book.
She was told that she was the first woman to retrace the March.

caif

This book has had a powerful impact on me - Never to be forgotten. Why? Because of the quality of the research and the easy style of writing. The fact that it was written in real-time i.e. the author was describing her own experience doing the March itinerary in the 21st century, visiting and supplementing her academic research with survivors of this unbelievable experience - True survivors from hell, made the Long March event so much more human and meaningful than any highly formal plain academic study could have. The author drew me into their world so efficiently that I was there among the "marchers" - I felt their faith, their hopes, their strength, their despair, their betrayal. I was a humble shadow travelling alongside the writer, witnessing the long March, an awe inspiring motivational lesson for me.

Gaudiker

An oral history approach, from the vantage point of the lower ranks of the Red Army, to describing the famous Long March that preceded Mao's political take over of mainland China. A good book for those interested in the pre-World War II history of the Middle Kingdom.

The author approaches her subject with an open mind, in spite of having grown up with only the high propaganda side of this epic tale. She finds brave, but very aged, Red army survivors who had fought through extreme difficulties (hostile weather, terrain, and enemy troops) for a cause they believed in, but under leadership that was extraordinarily uncaring of human life.

It is heartening that the PRC has changed enough over the last few decades for it now to apparently tolerate an open and honest historical inquiry by a citizen of a major political event pertaining to its founding, such as here by Sun Shuyun.

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