China probably built your computer, your cell phone, and your air conditioner. So come find out who's keeping you cool and connected Thursday at the Madison Public Library, when former history professor Eve Fisher will present "A Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party: A Brief History of China."
The title of Fisher's talk comes from Chairman Mao:
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another [Mao Zedong, "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 28.]
Mao contended that he and his fellow peasants were justified in using "the greatest force" and creating terror in every rural area to overturn feudal rule that had been in place for thousands of years. Fisher will be happy to answer questions about the Maoist terror that paved the way for China's rise and much more Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/22/believe_it_or_not_karl_marx_is_making_a_comeback/
Also, a lot about Japanese-Chinese relations. (hint: bad)
So wishing I could be there, Eve. As we come on to the centennial of the "guns of august" I note that the tendrils of Versailles reached across the globe to the Asian-Pacific theater. The German concession at the Shandong Peninsula was handed over to Japan in the Treaty--making for an entry point to the horrors that followed. Not telling you anything you don't know, but sharing a thought here: That WWI was some kind of game-changer wasn't it?