Since modern tyrannies tend to be ideological in character, they rely heavily on rhetoric or propaganda. This chapter consists of eight speeches that illustrate different ways that rhetoric has been used to foster tyrannical or immoral and violent policies in modern politics. The speakers include Maximilien Robespierre, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, and Deng Xiaoping.

This chapter examines the rise of China across the 1989 divide, as a year in both Chinese and global history. It focuses on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership's response to the domestic and international crises of 1989–1992. Using previously unstudied internal Chinese materials, it argues that this period - often overlooked in scholarship of contemporary China -witnessed significant and enduring changes in how the CCP intended to guide China's rise: bifurcating economic liberalization and political liberalization, building up the institution of the leadership "core," strengthening the party, opposing "peaceful evolution," and rewriting the history of the preceding decade to emphasize a battle between "bourgeois liberalization" and Deng Xiaoping's authoritarian Four Cardinal Principles. This chapter shows how the CCP came to see itself as a socialist survivor, uniquely able to exploit the benefits of openness to global capitalism while resisting the perceived dangers. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how these crucial shifts in the period 1989–1992 have profoundly shaped the Chinese system and international images of China to the present day.

Chapter 7 focuses on the economic and political reforms of General Secretary Zhao Ziyang (1919–2005) and his predecessor Hu Yaobang (1915–1989). The reforms are placed within the context of both the controversial “reform and opening” policies of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), and also the larger context of intra-Party ideological debates dating back to founding of the nation. Zhao’s early career as Party secretary in his native county before 1949 is contrasted with his later posting to Guangdong as part of an initiative to break local resistance to land reform in the 1950s. The disastrous Great Leap Forward is presented as a formative experience for Zhao, leading him to side with Mao’s critics, a decision which would in turn lead to his fall from power in 1967. His eventual rehabilitation by Zhou Enlai in 1971 is described as having led Zhao to support political and economic reform beginning with the Li Yizhe controversary of 1974 and culminating in his work in the late 1970s as Party secretary in Sichuan, where he was responsible for implementing Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in the agricultural sector. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Zhao’s rapid promotion to premier by 1980, and his pragmatic approach to political reform and liberalization, which would lead to his eventual downfall for a second time on the eve of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, and contested legacy in the PRC today.

Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the UN human rights regime and Chinese human rights views.The main substance of this chapter is an overview of China’s experiences with and participation in the human rights regime, including the treaty bodies and special procedures.Chapter 2 begins with China’s foray into the regime in the early 1980s beginning with the UN Commission on and Human Rights and traces the PRC’s growing engagement with the regime, including Chinese ratification of a range of human rights treaties and acceptance of visits by select UN special procedures.Crucially, it examines the post-Tiananmen period, when after 1989 the PRC faced international opprobrium and human rights scrutiny not only in the UNCHR where other states tried to pass resolutions on China’s record, but also from other parts of the regime.It details Beijing’s strategies to mitigate negative human rights attention.

chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the UN human rights regime and Chinese human rights views.The main substance of this chapter is an overview of China’s experiences with and participation in the human rights regime.Because the subsequent chapters cover a wide range of the regime’s bodies and procedures, this This chapter provides background on China’s interactions with a wide range of the regime’s components, including the treaty bodies and special procedures.Chapter 2 begins with China’s first foray into the regime in the early 1980s beginning with the UN Commission on and Human Rights and traces the PRC’s growing engagement with the regime, including Chinese ratification of a range of human rights treaties and acceptance of visits by select UN special procedures.Crucially, it examines the post-Tiananmen period, when after 1989 the PRC faced international opprobrium and human rights scrutiny not only in the UNCHR where other states tried to pass resolutions on China’s record, but also from other parts of the regime.It details Beijing’s strategies to mitigate negative human rights attention.

Examines George H. W. Bush’s efforts to establish a new world order and reliance on traditional Cold War strategies and alliances. Assesses Bush Sr.’s successes (e.g. German reunification) and failures (in Yugoslavia and Iraq). Documents beginning of post-Cold War US wars of Muslim liberation, a pattern continued by the presdients that followed him.