Nicely printed with color photos, sidebars with deeper explanations, and a fair portrayal of this highly politicized event in history, Tiananmen Square Protests allow students to learn that this was not a one day event.  It was not about one man standing in front of the tanks.  This book takes the first 46 of 100 pages to set the stage for why Chinese citizens of every age pushed for the protests of 1989.  After establishing a history of social protests in China, something most people probably wouldn’t realize existed, author Marcia Amidon Lusted does a seamless job of being non-political in her evaluation of the protests that lasted over two months.  Because of the government cover, official toll of the deaths during the crackdown in June are still unclear, ranging up to 3,000.  Those of us who have live in democracies will want more of the “What if the protests succeeded?”, but the fact is, as she clearly states, that “the younger, post Tiananmen generation knows very little about the protests of 1989…” and see their future in economic terms, not political.  This is an additional selection for libraries that need a more current look at China’s social protest movements.