50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism

by Michael Zezima

Book Overview

Perfectly sized for handbags and coat pockets (it's the same size as a CD), it's a tremendous gift for anyone whose idea of patriotism needs some revision. 50 American Revolutions is a concise, quick... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932857184
• ISBN13: 9781932857184
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Disinformation Company
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Informative little book

Mickey Z always tells it like it is. Everyone in America should read what he has to say.

Share It With Everyone - Especially Friends, Family, Neighbors, & "Enemies."

There are a great many wonderful stories in this book. There are stories about Thomas Paine and Billie Holiday and Mohammad Ali and about the families of people killed in the September 11 attacks. Almost everyone will enjoy one or two or a few of them, and many people will enjoy and perhaps feel inspired by them all. Of course the book is written from the author's perspective. Through who else's eyes should an author choose to see the world? With who else's voice should he tell his story? And let's not for a minute accept the tired, condescending refrain about "Left Wing Myth." Who would say such a thing, except someone mired in mainstream blather, with it's relentless insistence that we only accept information from their list of officially designated experts and authorities? This book can change the way you look at your country, your world, and your own place in the great dramas currently unfolding before our eyes. This book can be a great help in waking friends and family from their foolish, but oh so comfortable political slumbers. It's a great book for grandma and grandpa, a book with a short story a day for a restless teen, a book for busy mothers who rarely have more than 5 consecutive minutes to themselves, and it's a book to share with the conservatives in your life - at least those who enjoy a good story, and can appreciate acts of courage, compassion, honesty, and good hope.

Ivory Tower Intellectuals Won't Like This Book: Call it Blithe Ignorance

To the previous reviewers herein who think this book is junk, all I can say is "wake up punks". Movements can't be built until the masses realize real change is possible. Most don't read "Dissent Magazine", and they shouldn't. Mickey Z's latest is not a Howard Zinn rip-off either; it's a coherent well-researched book that has the capability of reaching a lot of people. Something most accredited historians will never do. I can see how pompous academics may also find Z's book a bit trite; for they are used to writing essays and articles for their own little insular cohorts. Stroking each other's egos. Quarreling over the mundane and arguing the insignificant. But it's not Z's book that is trite - that award goes to the academy that only deems certain literature as viable to creating discourse in the public arena. Yet, academic books, which Z's is not, are limited in their scope and ability to reach large numbers of people. And that is the best thing about 50 American Revolutions - it breaks through the mold of elitist b.s. and helps bridge the gap between the history-untold and the real world. Mickey Z is a brave spokesperson for the radical frontier of American politics and 50 American Revolutions is his best work yet.

Great American Snapshots

In "50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know," Mickey Z. takes the reader on a tour of some big-time personalities and events that played big-time roles in shaping American society. And yet, many of the revolutions discussed in "50AR" aren't given much ink, if any at all, in most high school and college history textbooks. Arranged chronologically, Mickey presents snapshots of American political dissidents as well as artists and athletes whose work ran counter to the prevailing culture. From the rebellions of Daniel Shays and Nat Turner earlier in American history to the groundbreaking work of photographer Dorothea Lange and sports reporter Lester Rodney in the 20th century, Mickey writes an easy-to-read history of the United States. "50AR" highlights the work of vegan nutritionists, disability rights activists, and autonomous groups such as Food Not Bombs who decline to operate in charity circles sanctioned by both governmental and nongovernmental officials. Following in the tradition of Mickey's "There Is No Good War" (aka "Saving Private Power"), "50AR" highlights an alternative yet important American history. It also serves as a reminder of the power that people have here in America when they have the courage to stand up and take action.

Raves from both sides of the Atlantic

Kristen Henderson of Antigone Rising wrote: "Mickey Z's 50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know is a reminder that complacency is (so) not sexy. It inspires one to stand up to the things that don't pass the tummy test. Those of us who choose the middle of the road will only get hit by a car." === From Spinwatch.org: "The seventh inning stretch required fans to stand in honour of the `men and women in uniform' who fight to `preserve our way of life.' Fifty thousand removed their free caps, watched a digitised flag wave on the big screen, and held the [sponsors] patch over their cholesterol-laden hearts while belting out `God Bless America,' collectively choosing to ignore the blood being spilled to keep the world safe for petroleum."  - Mickey Z Billie Holiday singing a song may not be what everyone has in mind when they hear the word revolution but individual acts of conscience and bravery are often at the root of major changes in social order and attitude. This book is essentially a compendium of some of the finest moments in anti-establishment US history and some occasions when the establishment actually did something worthwhile (this was only a few of the 50). Some of the seminal moments of Feminism (probably shouldn't use the word `seminal' in relation to Feminism but if I said `ovulatory moments' it could still end up in a sticky mess!) Comedy, Music, Anarchism and Socialism are included in the book and some other things besides, notably Marlon Brando and Kathleen Hepburn's underwear. Some of these stories, like Muhammad Ali refusing the draft or the ' Battle in Seattle' are familiar but there are many that most probably won't know. However, it is not the American History element that I find most interesting in this book (probably because I am not American). It is the personal acts of resistance and courage of the people in it, sometimes individual and sometimes collective, that is most impressive. It also shows how small acts by individuals can have huge consequences, in the US or anywhere else. Whether by laying down their lives, singing a song or even wearing and then not wearing trousers (don't get the wrong idea - this part has nothing to do with seminal moments) the people in Mickey Z's book challenged power and orthodoxy - which is why we are not supposed to know about them. I like the idea of American teenagers reading this book and going to their history teachers and demanding to know why some of this stuff isn't being studied in class. Or, in this country, demanding to know why we are brought up to learn what a marvellous hero and orator Winston Churchill was and don't hear about his enormous military failures at Gallipoli and of him giving his authorisation to a plan to gas bomb villages of civilians or, as it was put, `recalcitrant Arabs' in order to inspire a `lively terror.' The same `memory hole' system applies in both countries. Stories like the 50 included here, although not exactly suppressed o