Fifty Page Stalin Book example essay topic

When I first heard that we would be doing a paper on a song by Billy Joel I thought that this was going to be not exactly an easy, but a fun project. I was impressed on how it was broken down into the years and I really liked the fact that we could choose our own year. Little did I know that that was going to be my downfall. When it came time to choose I had already singled out my year of 1955 because I recognized all of those names, but as my fate would have it 1955 was one of the first years chosen so I had to find another appealing year and fast.

I decided to choose one close to that year and scrolling down the paper I saw the name", Joesph Stalin". This name stood out to me because I was aware of most of the things that he did in his lifetime. What I did not pay attention to was the fact that I did not know any of the other people in my year and by the looks of it they were all foreign. Name like Campanella and Malenkov really threw me and as soon as they said Communist bloc I really was sorry I ever choose 1953.

I decided to start with the most known to me, Joseph Stalin. As I looked for a book on him in the library I was shocked at the one and only book I could find. The title was STALIN and it was over 1000 pages long! I hurried to Mrs. Foster to ask if that was what I had to work from and to my relief she showed me a smaller book about him that was about fifty pages. I figured I had one source so I better work on another before class was dismissed. I set the book I was given down and started looking for this Malenkov character but no matter how hard I tried to find him he was no where to be found in our library and the time wasted trying to find him was the rest of that days class time.

The next day I returned determined to find and record at least four sources. To start I was going to get that fifty page Stalin book I had but the bad luck rolled on when Mrs. Foster informed me that the book was misplaced and I could not use it. At this moment I was beginning to become frustrated because I had zero sources and it seemed that the rest of the class was doing just fine. I walked over to the book cart and pulled a huge book out called, The 20th Century Year by Year. This was the first bit of luck I had because not only did it have 1953, but with all the major events and pictures. In fact on the first page right at the top was an article about, the man of the hour, Joseph Stalin.

I found out two new, major things out about him in the short bit of writing. The first was that he died in the year 1953. The second thing was that his real name was Joseph Djugashvili, and he, "adopted the name Stalin (man of steel) during the Russian Revolution". (The 20th Century Year by Year. 191) I never knew that Stalin was not his real name and that Stalin meant man of steel. I would like to have a name like that myself.

My next task was to look on the Internet to see if I could find anything on Malenkov. All I knew about him so far is that his name sounded Russian and it sounded like a man's name. I went to Lycos and searched for that name and it sent me to Encarta Reference and had one page written about the man called Malenkov. Apparently his full name was Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov. This man was the premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republicans (USSR).

Two years after the death of Stalin he was forced to resign by communist party leader Nikita Khrushchev. Websters 7th New Collegiate Dictionary (168) defines communism as "A doctrine based upon revolutionary Marxian socialism and is the official ideology of the USSR". It also said, "A totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production with the professed aim of establishing a stateless society". Isn't that what Russia is? A place where the Government has total control of the people? Well this was starting to get a little too foreign to me so I tried to find out if Malenkov had anything to do with America but alas he was only with Russia.

Although on the web page about Malenkov it stated. "Unlike Stalin, Malenkov pursued a somewhat conciliatory policy toward the West. (web) After my boring encounter with the wonderful world of Russians and the "Communist bloc" (People's Republic of China, Cuba, The German Democratic Republic, Kampuchea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Romania, USSR, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.) (web). I decided to research something more interesting and less foreign to me so I tried Nasser because it sounds like Napster, Nascar, and NASA and those are all American so isn't this? Nope.

According to The World Book Encyclopedia, Gamal Abdel Nasser, "Led a revolt that overthrew King Far uk in 1952 and established Egypt as a republic in 1953". (Justin McCarthy 24) So it seemed that no one in my year was American so I chose to just go in order and write down where they all came from and what they did since I could not relate to any of them. So far I have had two Russians and one Egyptian, what could be next? Well I did see Rockefeller and I know that he was American but there are so many Rockefellers that I didn't know where to start. I tried looking them up in The World Book Encyclopedia but all it did was tell me vague information about all the Rockefellers. I knew I had to look for something that occurred in 1953 but nothing important did occur with them in that year and worst yet there were still more than one alive and famous at that time.

After what seemed like hours of research I decided to give up and not include them in my report. Tired, hungry, and with sore hands I continued on as I reached my next name, Prokofiev. This was the weirdest name yet and the worst part was that when I looked that name up in the Washoe County Library I got about twelve different names. Narrowing it down to 1953 I found a man named Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev. Prokofiev lived from 1891 to 1953 and in The Colombian Encyclopedia it says", Prokofiev was a Russian composer, a pianist, and a conductor". (30207) From the information I could gather he was a great composer who visited the U.S. many times and wrote Great music.

He is known for his seven symphonies, the most popular being the Classical Symphony and the Fifth. His most famous Operas are The Gambler, The Love for Three Oranges, and in a Convent based War and Peace. Finally I reached my last name, Campanella. As much as I wanted to be finished with this paper I wanted to continue to learn more. I chose to search the Internet for this one because I already had my six book sources and one Internet source. In the entire Internet all I could find was his baseball statistics which told me a lot about his career but not much about his life.

I gathered by searching the Sports Illustrated web page that he played his best year as a catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1953 with a career high of forty-one home runs and 142 RBI's. I also found out that he played with Jackie Robinson at that same time. So much happened in 1953 it would take a novel just to cover it all but some other events that took place include: Edmund Hillary and Tending Norgay becoming the first to climb Mt. Everest and make it to the top.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death by electric chair for spy treason leaving behind their two orphan sons. Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature. John F. Kennedy was married to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. Elizabeth II became Queen of England. The structure for DNA is mapped by James Watson and Francis Crick. The Vietnam War is underway and much much more.

(The 20th Century Year by Year, Phillips, Charles) I really enjoyed researching this paper because it gave me a chance to connect with my history and understand more about what went on. This was not at all what I expected it to be like. Even though it was a lot of hard work it was never overwhelming partly because on some things I could recall names and events, partly because it was worth almost fifty percent of my grade, and mostly because I really enjoyed myself.