Review by Choice Review
Students have been challenging authority for longer than most people imagine. Boren, in this global history of student actions, documents major incidents worldwide from the medieval period to the present. The import of these movements, claims the author, lies in their ability to manipulate or provoke large-scale social or economic forces. Boren describes the strategies employed by the groups and the consequences of their actions. The strength of the book is its depiction of variations and continuities in form and action across time and place. Although the accounts of particular incidents are interesting and will be very useful to students researching these topics, the alleged international connections between movements are never well established. This makes the selection of movements presented in each section appear haphazard. Events such as the Prague Spring are described out of their international political context, with the result that their ongoing symbolic importance is diminished. The author gives no real sense of student strategizing within movements. Nevertheless, the book works well as an introductory reference guide to this most interesting type of social movement. Appropriate for lower-division undergraduates and above. C. J. Hager Bryn Mawr College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
There are plenty of books about student activism in the 1960s, and a few about the student antiapartheid movement of the 1980s and current antisweatshop and antiglobalization agitation on campus. But Boren, a college English instructor, may be the first to attempt a popular survey of the history of student activism across nearly 10 centuries and around the world. Boren devotes three chapters to the period from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century; three to the first six decades of the twentieth century; three to the 1960s; and one each to the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. His geographical reach is broad, opening his chapter on modernization and the "rise of the student leader," for example, with Europe's student revolts of 1848 and then moving on to China, India, the U.S., and Russia in the same time period. (Other chapters include Latin America, the Mideast, and Africa.) Not an essential acquisition, this should appeal to readers seeking context for student movements past and present. --Mary Carroll
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Whether facing down tanks in Tiananmen Square or police gunfire at Kent State, student protestors are best known for isolated, symbolic gestures. But student activism has often been a force for profound social and political transformation. Beginning in the Middle Ages, with the formation of the first European universities, this international history of student resistance surveys 500 years of student activism in Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the United States. American readers may be startled by the role that students in other countries have played in overthrowing governments, from the 1950s downfall of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista to Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution. Material on the 1960s will be familiar to many readers, but few are knowledgeable about the explosion of activism at Latin American universities in the early 20th century or the violence at Bangladeshi schools in the 1990s. The book's last chapter, on recent developments, is perhaps inevitably, given the volatility of its subject already out of date. Boren, who teaches English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, mentions the current anti-sweatshop movement and graduate-student unions on U.S. campuses, but neglects the many other recent student/labor alliances, including students' attempts to win better pay and work conditions for low-wage workers on their campuses. Most of the narrative reads like a simple time line of events, and Boren offers too little analysis or commentary. Still, he's written a useful and much-needed resource on student protest. (July 1) Forecast: The recent upsurge in U.S. student activism should provoke interest in this book, but due to its academic subtitle and Boren's dry writing, it's not likely to find an audience beyond the campus. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Antiwar protests by students during the Vietnam War are the ones best remembered by Americans, but as Boren (English, Univ. of North Carolina) demonstrates, students have been confronting governments, society, and their own universities for as long as institutions of higher education have existed. Boren places student rebellions in historical and global context by describing all known uprisings from every continent, beginning in the Middle Ages and continuing to the present. The strength of the book is also its weakness: depth is sacrificed for inclusion. Consequently, the book tends to read like a series of encyclopedia entries. Uprisings described in some detail the anti-Vietnam War protests and the student revolts in Mexico and France during the 1960s receive thorough treatment in other books. The author concludes that student revolts, which have become largely dormant at American universities while remaining prominent throughout the rest of the world, will continue to flare when political and cultural changes roil society. Recommended for larger public and academic collections as an overview that may lead the reader to more substantial investigations. Caution: avoid the overpriced hardcover edition and send the paperback to the bindery. Recommended for larger pubic and academic collections. Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Township Lib., King of Prussia, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
