Rockin' the Boat: 50 Iconic Revolutionaries—From Joan of Arc to Malcom X

By Jeff Fleischer

We love to root for the underdog, and when it comes to underdogs, few are more impressive than the world’s great revolutionaries.After all, it’s pretty hard to find a more powerful opponent than the world’s biggest empires and emperors. And that’s part of why we’re drawn to the stories of revolutionaries. Many of these men and women were born into virtual dystopias, and they fought throughout their lives, against all odds, to forge a path to a better future. And whether they succeeded, failed, or succeeded only to become a new kind of enemy, there’s something inherently fascinating about that effort to change the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541581999

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

As a kid without daily access to the Internet or cable, I first learned about a lot of important news stories on network TV—which meant that the story was important enough for each network to interrupt whatever it had been showing before. I remember watching TV one weekend when our regularly scheduled broadcast was set aside to show footage of Nelson Mandela, the South African revolutionary who had been in prison more than twice as long as I’d even been alive, walking out a free man. I’d learned about Mandela’s struggle against South African apartheid in school, in magazines, even in music. I’d grown to admire him long before his release from prison, and I got to follow how his story changed history from there, right up until his death (just a few months before I began work on this book). Even to a kid, Mandela showed in real time how obviously one man could change the course of history for the better.

Not all the people in this book are as admirable as Mandela, but they were all important revolutionaries in their own time. Every one of them managed to gather a big enough following to go down in history. Some tried to overthrow governments or stop invasions, while others fought for the rights of minorities or the poor.

As you probably guessed, getting the list down to just fifty revolutionaries wasn’t an easy task. The world’s first dominant empire, that of the Assyrians, was fighting uprisings more than 4,000 years ago, so there’s plenty of revolutionary history to choose from.

The list got narrowed a few ways. First, while it’s perfectly fair to call somebody a revolutionary in just about any field, everybody here made their biggest impact by influencing (or trying to influence) who was in charge of their homeland or how those in charge treated their people. (That means no Albert Einstein or Bob Dylan or Leonardo da Vinci.) Second, lots of revolutions throughout history didn’t have an obvious, clear-cut leader, and there were lots of revolutionary leaders about whom we either know little, or little that is true. Third, some figures didn’t make the cut simply because their stories were similar to those of others on the list, and there was only so much room. If your favorite revolutionary isn’t in the book, there’s a good chance he or she was under serious consideration.

To be clear, this book isn’t an attempt to put together a top fifty list or any kind of ranking. The fifty famous figures appear in the order of their birth, and each chapter gives a brief history of their life and accomplishments, along with some bonus facts. You can read them in order, skip around, or read some now and more later—it’s up to you.

The people chosen for the final fifty were also selected for variety. Some are obviously good guys (it’s hard to find much fault with Gandhi, for example). Others are pretty villainous, but most fit somewhere in between. For a lot of them, it really depends on which side is telling the story—as the old cliché goes, one person’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. Some of them emerged from their revolutions as big winners, others died in the service of a winning cause, and still others lost disastrously.

The final fifty span history, from Hannibal’s stand against ancient Rome to the civil rights struggles of just a generation ago. They span the globe, representing every continent except Antarctica (counting Oceania instead of just Australia). Some became revolutionaries as teenagers, others late in life. They include slaves and generals, suffragettes and queens, Communists and nationalists.

What all fifty fascinating figures have in common is that each one—from Vercingetorix to Joan of Arc to Vladimir Lenin—started out as a huge under-dog, but inspired supporters to fight for their cause. As John Lennon (no relation) and the Beatles put it in their song Revolution, we all want to change the world. Win or lose, each of these fifty people can say they did.

IMAGE COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

HANNIBAL BARCA

THE TIME: 247–c. 183 BCE

THE PLACE: Carthage

THE OPPONENT: Rome

In its prime, Rome was the heavyweight champion of world empires, the kind you had to be lucky just to fight to a draw. To get there, though, Rome had to survive its toughest foe—the ingenious Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca.

Carthage, a Phoenician city-state on the North African coast of modern-day Tunisia, was the biggest rival Rome had, a naval and trade power that totally dominated the Mediterranean. The Romans and Carthaginians (who the Romans called Punics) were clearly the two regional superpowers by 264 BCE, when both sides were asked to intervene in a local war in Sicily. Things quickly got out of hand, and they soon wound up fighting each other in what became the thirteen-year-long First Punic War. After a series of Roman victories, Carthage agreed to a peace treaty, giving up its interest in Sicily (and several other territories) and agreeing to pay a hefty annual war debt to Rome.

It got worse. First, Rome waited until the Carthaginians started demilitarizing and then changed the terms of the peace, leaving Carthage no choice but to accept a larger debt. As a result, Carthage didn’t have the money to pay its army—which mostly consisted of hired mercenaries from neighboring territories—and many of them angrily marched on the city. And while Carthage was busy fighting a full-scale war against its former mercenaries (using, naturally, more mercenaries), Rome grabbed control of a few under-defended Mediterranean islands.

None of this sat well with Hamilcar Barca, and he swore revenge for what the Romans had done. Probably the best of Carthage’s military commanders, Hamilcar had personally gone undefeated in the Punic War. He felt betrayed when his government agreed to peace, and then got stuck having to fight against his own guys on its behalf. Once the ex-mercenaries were defeated, Hamilcar put together a new (also mostly mercenary) army and took it to Europe, where he spent the rest of his life conquering much of what’s now Spain (Barcelona, for example, is named for his family).

THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps was such an impressive feat that future generals made a point of leading their own armies across the mountains. Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon Bonaparte all paid homage to Hannibal (and tried to show off) this way, but the Carthaginian general did it first—and with elephants.

While he was technically leading a Carthaginian army, Hamilcar was doing all this on his own authority, forging a military specifically loyal to him. Even by Carthaginian standards, he was no friend of Rome, and he made his oldest son, Hannibal, swear early in life that he would share that lifelong grudge. The boy definitely listened.

After Hamilcar drowned in battle against a Celtic tribe, and after the son-in-law who replaced him as commander was assassinated by a Celt, the army chose Hannibal—who’d grown up in the camp and fought alongside the men—as its new leader. Hannibal was only twenty-six at the time, but the government in Carthage went along with the decision.

Once in charge, Hannibal didn’t waste much time keeping his promise to his father and rebelling against the harsh peace Rome had forced on Carthage. He immediately started conquering what was left of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Erbo River, a boundary set up by that treaty with Rome. He also exploited a technicality that gave him a clever excuse to start his planned revenge. The city of Saguntum had its own protection deal with Rome, but it was unfortunately located just south of that Erbo boundary. Claiming it was his right under the rules, in 219 Hannibal put the city under siege and, after a difficult battle, sacked it.

Hannibal, already a few moves ahead, watched his opponent move into position to give him exactly what he wanted. The Romans didn’t risk actually helping the people of Saguntum by sending an army, but they did send ambassadors to Carthage to demand the government turn over Hannibal. He knew that wasn’t going to happen, not when he was still following the letter of the treaty and had become a star back home for conquering so much territory. So, Rome declared war, and Hannibal instantly had a nice and legal excuse to go after his real target.

With the Roman navy in control of the Mediterranean and virtually no help coming from home, Hannibal had only one way to invade Italy. Depending on whose numbers are right, he had between 40,000 and 100,000 troops with him, plus nearly forty war elephants. His just-crazy-enough-to-work idea was to take that large, modern army across the Alps, a mission that seemed nearly impossible at the time.

Just getting his army through the Alps to Italy would have made Hannibal a legend, as they had to survive attacks from mountain tribes, deadly cold, limited supplies, and treacherous terrain that sent men and animals falling over the edge. Though Hannibal might have come out the other side with as few as 20,000 men and only a few elephants, the achievement proved he wasn’t someone Rome could afford to take lightly.

He made sure the enemy knew it too, with a series of impressive victories against Roman legions on Italian soil. First at the river Trebia and then farther south at Lake Trasimene, Hannibal used the aggressiveness of Roman commanders against them, choosing the site and setting his battle formations the way he wanted before drawing the Roman armies into combat on his terms and completely annihilating them. Hannibal also worked to form alliances with the peoples of Italy, presenting himself as their best hope to be free of Roman rule—he even freed non-Roman soldiers taken prisoner after battles. Each victory made it easier to convince them that he had a real shot.

That got even easier after the Battle of Cannae, in which Hannibal again pulled off the seemingly impossible. By carefully deploying his battle formation and having the center of his army retreat slowly while the wings advanced, he was able to completely surround a force much larger than his own and hand it the worst defeat of the Second Punic War. The reported 70,000 deaths on the Roman side are probably an exaggeration, but whatever the number, it was definitely a lot. And it was not just how many died, but who died—including one of two current Roman consuls (basically co-presidents, elected every year), both the previous year’s consuls, and a huge chunk of the Roman Senate and the ruling class.

Rome eventually figured out that its best hope was to go on offense against the Carthaginians anywhere they weren’t commanded by this unbeatable general, and avoid facing Hannibal in battle as much as possible. While Hannibal and his army remained in Italy for a total of fifteen years, capturing cities and forming alliances, a Roman army successfully invaded Iberia. Hannibal’s younger brother, Hasdrubal, who had been raising reinforcements for a potential attack on Rome itself, was killed in battle in Spain. Hannibal learned those reinforcements would not be coming when Roman riders approached his army and threw his brother’s head into the camp.

A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW

Military commanders have long been obsessed with Hannibal’s against-the-odds domination at Cannae. German strategist Alfred von Schlieffen called it a perfect battle of annihilation and used Cannae as the inspiration for his 1905 Schlieffen Plan, a strategy for Germany to win a two-front war by encircling and defeating France and then turning to fight Russia. Germany gave this plan a try in World War I—and employed a version of it in World War II—only to find out just how difficult Hannibal’s tactics were to imitate.

Meanwhile, Rome’s own rising-star general, Scipio, went to Africa. There, he formed an important alliance with the Numidians—Carthaginian neighbors whose cavalry had made up an important part of Hannibal’s army—and prepared to attack Carthage itself. The government ordered Hannibal to come home and defend the city, so in 203 BCE he returned to Africa for the first time since he was a little boy. When treaty talks fell apart, Hannibal’s forces met Scipio’s at the Battle of Zama. Against a younger foe who had studied his tactics and learned how to use them against him, Hannibal suffered his first real defeat. Carthage soon agreed to an even harsher peace than before, one that cost a lot of money and all of its overseas territories, which made it a purely North African power, and gave Rome veto power over any Carthaginian military action, even within Africa.

After the war, when he was just forty-three, Hannibal ran for political office in Carthage, where he helped reform the city’s government and rebuild its economy. His reforms worked so well that Carthage was again a prosperous city-state just seven years after Zama. Still seeing Hannibal as a threat, Rome demanded the Carthaginians turn him over, but he escaped. He spent the rest of his life in exile and on the run, serving as a military strategist for a series of Roman foes and fleeing capture over and over again. He was in his mid-sixties when the Romans eventually caught up to him in Bithynia, part of modern Turkey. With all the exits blocked and no escape in sight, Hannibal drank the poison he always carried in his ring for just such an occasion, rather than be taken alive.

Carthage itself suffered from a similar Roman obsession, despite a peace treaty that was supposed to protect it. In 149 BCE, after a series of intentionally unreasonable demands that tricked the Carthaginians into giving up weapons, hostages, and its navy, Rome broke the treaty and declared a Third Punic War with the sole intent of destroying Carthage. When the city fell in 146 after a brutal siege, Rome killed or enslaved the entire population, burned the city, and finally destroyed its most powerful rival for good.

JUDAH MACCABEE

THE TIME: c. 190–160 BCE

THE PLACE: Judea

THE OPPONENT: The Seleucid Empire

Started more than 5,000 years ago, Judaism is one of the oldest surviving religions in the world, and the Jewish people have spent nearly that long surviving threats from a long list of would-be conquerors. When the Seleucid Empire tried to force the people of Judea to give up their culture, Judah Maccabee led the fight to make sure that didn’t happen.

When Judah was born in the second century BCE, the land of Judea was a small territory, just a fraction of modern Israel’s size. The problem was its location had always placed it in the path of a series of regional powers, and the Babylonians, the Persians, and Alexander the Great’s Macedonian Greeks took turns conquering Judea. When Alexander died unexpectedly in 332 BCE, his top generals divided up his empire and fought among themselves, and Judea changed hands again, this time falling under the rule of the Seleucid Empire (sometimes called the Syrian Greeks).

The empires that grew out of Alexander the Great’s conquests all believed in Hellenization, the practice of spreading Greek culture, language, and religion. The Seleucids were particularly harsh about it, and it only got worse under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (the son of Antiochus the Great). In 167 BCE, Antiochus attacked and sacked the city of Jerusalem, which had previously been held by the less-extreme Ptolemaic Empire, and imposed Seleucid rule over Judea.

Antiochus flat-out banned the practice of Judaism, essentially trying to stop Jews from being Jewish, and ordering them to worship Zeus and other Greek gods. Obviously, this didn’t sit well with the people, and many refused to comply. Antiochus sent an occupying army to enforce his laws, and tens of thousands of Jews were executed for disobeying.

IMAGE BY MCLEOD/WIKICOMMONS

Others went along with the orders, and not just out of fear. In fact, a faction of Judeans supported Hellenization, and what became known as the Maccabean Revolt started in 167 as a civil war between those who wanted to assimilate and those who didn’t.

The original revolutionary in the Maccabee family was Judah’s father, Mattathias (sometimes known as Matisyahu), a prominent cohen who served as the religious leader for the town of Modi’in. He and his five sons—Simon, Eleazer, Judah, Jonanan, and Jonathan—fled Jerusalem and hid out in the forest after Mattathias killed a fellow Jew who made sacrifices to the Greek gods.

When Mattathias died in 166, Judah (though only the third-oldest son) took over leadership of the family and the supporters who joined the cause. Maccabee wasn’t Judah’s original surname; he picked up the name (which roughly translates as the Hammer) during the rebellion, and the whole family became known by the fitting nickname.

The Maccabee brothers understood that guerilla tactics were their best chance at victory, and took the enemy by surprise whenever possible. Judah’s first big victory came at Wadi Haramia, where his troops ambushed and defeated a larger Seleucid army and killed its commander. The win convinced more Jews who opposed Hellenization to join up, and Judah’s forces produced another important victory at Emmaus, destroying the Seleucid camp while their army was off trying to find Judah’s.

The Maccabean uprising lasted years, with both sides trading victories. Antiochus IV actually died during the rebellion (in 164 BCE), but during an unrelated military campaign against the Parthians. That same year, Judah’s brother Eleazer fell during the Maccabean loss at the Battle of Beth-Zehariah, while he attacked a massive war elephant, crawling under the animal to kill it and dying when it collapsed on top of him. Eventually, the Maccabees proved enough of a consistent thorn in the Seleucids’ side that the empire agreed to a compromise that restored religious freedom and allowed the Maccabees to rededicate the temple in Jerusalem. With Antiochus IV dead, his top commander withdrew, leaving Judea under nominal Seleucid rule but without any real enforcement.

SPORTING SUCCESS

Judah Maccabee is so synonymous with the idea of Jewish strength that when Olympics-style games were created for Jewish athletes, organizers named them in honor of the revolutionary leader. Held every four years in Israel (formerly every three), the Maccabiah Games began as a response to European nations banning Jews from taking part in official sporting events. Since that time, they’ve become the largest international sports competition other than the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup. Jewish athletes from more than eighty countries—and non-Jewish athletes who live in Israel—have participated in the Maccabiah Games.

The event has several ties to the area’s revolutionary past. Though the idea originated a couple decades earlier, the games debuted in 1932, when the territory was again controlled by a major colonial power (in this case, Great Britain). The event was even timed to coincide with the 1,800th anniversary of yet another Jewish rebellion, the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans in 132–136 CE. Like the Olympics, the Maccabiah Games begin with a torch carried through the streets; this one always starts its journey in Modi’in, the birthplace of Judah Maccabee.

Judah had won, but the victory didn’t last long. Even once the Seleucids backed off, Judah and his men had to fight a series of battles against other Jews who still wanted to Hellenize and saw the empire as bringing modernization. Those who opposed the Maccabees went to the Seleucids for help, setting off a new round of war. Judah Maccabee gave his life in this round—he was killed during the Battle of Elasa in 160 BCE in an underdog stand against a large pro-Hellenization force.

INSPIRING A HOLIDAY

The Maccabees and their revolution are remembered each year through the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, the festival of lights.

As part of the attempt to make the Jews adopt Greek culture, Antiochus had idols of Greek gods placed in the Holy Temple of Judea (this was the second such temple, rebuilt after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon). He even had pigs sacrificed there, specifically because pigs were not kosher animals and were considered dirty. After the Maccabees regained control of Jerusalem, they rededicated the temple, removing all signs of the invaders and restoring Jewish practices. This included burning oil to light the temple’s menorah.

The tale goes that the temple only had enough oil left to burn for a night. But by a miracle, the oil lasted for eight nights, just enough time to produce a new supply of kosher oil. The story of the miracle became a powerful representation of the Jewish victory and the removal of the invaders’ influence, and was taken as a sign to the faithful that a higher power supported the win. The Maccabees declared an annual eight-day holiday to commemorate the event, which is still celebrated today with the nightly lighting of menorah candles, and the cooking of potato pancakes in oil to symbolize the oil that burned longer than expected.

Judah’s uprising didn’t die with him, as his martyrdom actually inspired more resistance to the invaders. His brother Jonathan took command for a time, before he was assassinated. He was followed by Simon, the last Maccabee brother, who got to see the establishment of independent rule in Judea. Simon expanded Jewish territory significantly, and became king in everything but name twenty years after Judah’s death. His line of succession, the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty, ruled Judea for more than a century, before the territory eventually fell into the hands of the Romans.

GAIUS GRACCHUS

THE TIME: c. 153–121 BCE

THE PLACE: Rome

THE OPPONENT: The Roman Senate

The Roman tribune Gaius Gracchus—like his literal brother in reform, Tiberius Gracchus—arrived on the political scene at a time when the wealth and power of Rome were growing rapidly, but mostly benefitted those already wealthy and powerful. The brothers were the first Roman politicians to truly challenge the power of the Roman Senate—and both paid dearly for it, though they also changed the course of Roman history.

Gaius Gracchus was born around 153 BCE, nine years after his brother. Their father, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was a two-time consul who had also held other high offices in Rome. Their mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the commander who defeated Hannibal to win the Second Punic War for Rome. The brothers came from a wealthy and influential family, making it easy for later opponents (and supporters) to call them traitors to their class.

In the century leading up to their birth, Rome had quickly gone from a regional power to the

Reviews for Rockin' the Boat

[kslade-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good summaries of the lives of various revolutionaries such as Che Guevera, Nelson Mandela, and Nat Turner. This reads very well and makes you want to learn more. Good for YA readers too.

[marnij-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Honestly, Zest Books has never let me down and finishing out my part of this tour, I can say that they are truly a diverse publishing group. You may wonder just how much info you can get in a book about 50 different icons in history and I'm here to tell you it's a lot more than you would think. The author expertly touches on various aspects of each person, including trivia bits that can be used in conversation with others who have the same interests.This is a book that can be shared throughout a family or a group of friends. A helpful reference when either researching one of those listed in the book or to use as a starting point in finding someone to do further research on. For any history teachers out there, this would be a great supplement to your classroom library. For students, nothing like being able to add something interesting facts during class discussions.Any person who has an interest in iconic figures in history would find this book right up their alley. An issue with the book though, is the small font throughout the book. This is a limitation for those with vision issues. A bigger font would bring in more readers. Yes, this would make for a larger book, but even if the book doubled in size, it would be very manageable. My reading glasses got a work out with this one, but I survived.