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Kade Soderstrom

Stanford

English

29 August 2018

The Art of The Revolution

The Art of the Revolution is the art of overthrowing government, the following books

depict this art beautifully. The First book, ​Common sense, ​talks about reasons to start a

revolution. The second book, ​Flyboys,​ gives a great example of a form of warfare to overthrow

government. The third book​, Animal Farm, ​shows how a successful revolution can still lead to an

unsuccessful government. Although, not all government entities after a revolution are

unsuccessful, the American revolution turned into one of the most successful countries of

modern day history, the United States of America, as previewed in ​Common Sense.

Common Sense

Common Sense ​explains the ideology behind one of the greatest examples of a revolution

in history, the American Revolution. In ​Common Sense ​by Thomas Paine it says, “ In short,

monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and

ashes. ““Tis as form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood

will attend it.””(Paine) Every revolution starts with people that are not happy with the current

form of government or the way the current government suppresses them. In America’s case, the

current government was a Monarchy that suppressed them with unfair taxes and rules, they used
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these reasons to revolt; the United States of America ended up with a successful revolution and

new form of government.

FlyBoys

There is a lot of content in the book ​Flyboys,​ but hidden among all the information was

the story about the Rape of Nanking. A man named Mao Tse-tung fought against Japan when

Japan was trying to take over China. In ​FlyBoys b​ y James Bradley it says: “In addition to

Chiang, Japan also faced the twentieth century’s greatest guerrilla leader, the wily Mao Tse-tung,

who himself controlled part of China, commanded large forces, and enjoyed the support of

peasants.”(Bradley) This perfectly shows the most popular way to revolt, guerrilla warfare. A

massive detail in this quote is the fact that people of lower status tend to take up arms first and

fight against suppression; therefore, the support of the poor is Guerilla warfares greatest

weapon. Guerilla warfare has been seen in multiple revolutions, two examples being the Vietnam

war and American Revolution. It has been very successful when used correctly.

Animal Farm

Animal farm is a book about animals that revolt against human beings and start their own

form of government, but it failed miserably. In the text of ​Animal Farm ​by George Orwell ““It

(Animal Farm) tells how the animals captured the Manor Farm from its drunken incompetent

farmer; how they changed its name to Animal Farm and established it as a model community in

which animals were equal; how two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, gained control of the

revolution and fought each other for the mastery; how the neighbouring humans reacted and

counterattacked and were beaten off…;how the farm learned that ‘some animals are more equal
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than others” and their last state was as bad as the first; and how the ruling pigs became dailymore

and more indistinguishable from their human neighbors.”’(Orwell) The book shows the art of the

revolution by explaining the result of the revolt. The revolution resulted in Animal farm, the new

government, and turned into the same, if not worse, government that was there before. The

leaders of the new government become corrupt and turned into the same greedy leaders as

before. The animals in the new government are manipulated into thinking that all animals are

equal, but that is not true once so ever.

CONCLUSION

All the books discussed above have analyzed the Art of the Revolution and will give the

reader of this paper a greater understanding of the topic. ​Common Sense​ proved that there needs

to be a motivation behind the Revolution. ​FlyBoys t​ old us about the success of guerrilla warfare

and why it should be used in Revolutions against a bigger and more powerful enemy. In ​Animal

Farm, i​ t tells us about the outcomes of a successful overthrow, but a successful government and

the following warning signs to watch out for: manipulation of citizens and greed of political

leaders. These are the key elements in The Art of the Revolution.

Works Cited
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Bradley, James. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage. New York: Back Bay, 2004. Print.

Pg. 52

Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story(YA). New York, NY: Signet Classic, 1996.

Print. Pg xx

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997. Print.

Pg. 16