Reviews for "He Loves a Good Deal of Rum" : Military Desertions During the American Revolution, 1775-1783: 1775-june 30, 1777, Vol. 1

The average rating for "He Loves a Good Deal of Rum" : Military Desertions During the American Revolution, 1775-1783: 1775-june 30, 1777, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-10-04 00:00:00 Keri Valdez This is quite a fine study but the intention of the study transcends its title--that is, to examine why the Chinese press today has not been able to attain independence from the state, analysed through the historical perspective of the 19th missionary publication enterprise. The conclusion of her study is that the missionaries, while introducing a dynamic free press under the auspices of the extraterritorial rights gained through the Opium Wars, ultimately, were not fighting for the implementation of a free press as an entity to criticise and check the government within the public sphere. Rather, as I agree, the press was meant to be a vehicle for the ultimate conversion of China to Christianity. However, I feel that her assessment contains a tinge of disappointment with the objectives of the missionary enterprise--in terms of not fighting for the implementation of a free press. This disappointment, I opine, doesn't really seem to be warranted, because there was a chance, historically speaking, in Republican China to establish a free press, but the authoritarian orientation of the warlords and Nanjing KMT government (in terms of how much freedom to allow) eventually prevented this from coming to pass (this would be different considering the situation in Taiwan after the 1980s). And, of course, if a Nationalist government continued in power, things may have turned out very differently for press freedom today. In this sense, this historical critique/evaluation of the current media situation in China, whilst valid to a certain extent, cannot be, in one sense, attributed to the missionaries' failure to fight for a free press--and therefore "destining" the Chinese media to fight a long battle for a sustainable independent voice (p. 148)--because the intent of the missionary press was not so, but rather, to attain some form of top-down conversion in China. Giving greater weight to the latter factor, to me, would be a fairer assessment.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-03 00:00:00 Elaine C. Lueras Mostly concentrated on tearing down the Bush administration, I was expecting more shocking or rather, unexpected knowledge that has slipped under the table in recent years. While I personally enjoyed the analysis that media played on hiding certain pieces of information and how it relayed facts and twisted it one way or the other, it was hard to pinpoint what the actual purpose of the book was. It's very hard to rebut any of the authors key points but it felt, scattered. A lot of long analogies were used and though useful to make a point, as a reader one lost track of what the purpose of the analogy was, once it went on for more than two pages.