Part II of The Wire guide to the 1911 Revolution and some closing thoughts on the significance of 1911 in today’s political climate.
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So, I spent the summer rewatching all five seasons of The Wire and the more I watched it, the more I realized that far from being the story of Baltimore, there was a timelessness and placelessness to the Wire that transcended one city. The sense of hope battling the reality of hopelessness, the way rhetoric and political transitions, however dramatic, rarely change the day-to-day lives of the people at the bottom, the thought of Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai taking swings at each other like Stringer and Avon, it occurred to me how much it reminded me of the years before and after the 1911 Revolution. So without further ado, The Wire guide to the 1911 Revolution, Part I. (Warning: Some strong language) I’ve been told that my only talent is as a repository of useless trivia (hence: the history degree) and have also on more than one occasion been accused of being something of an obnoxious know-it-all (Thanks, Mom!), and…I like pubs. So this was an idea whose time had come, right? Wrong? |
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Copyright © 2012 Jottings from the Granite Studio - All Rights Reserved
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On Sun Yatsen, 1912, and Han Han
Trusting Yuan Shikai to nourish a fragile young republican government was basically akin to dousing a three-year old in A1 Sauce and putting him in the care of a rabid honey badger, but the demise of the first republican experiment might not have been as inevitable as some believe.