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Keywords: Mao
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- Abstract: This course explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions. How do people overthrow their rulers? How do they establish new governments? Do radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror? How have revolutionaries attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals? We will look at a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. By the end of the course, students will be able to offer reasons why some revolutions succeed and others fail. Materials for the course include the writings of revolutionaries, declarations and constitutions, music, films, art, memoirs, and newspapers.
- Subject:
Humanities, Social Sciences
- Grade Level:
Post-secondary
- Collection:
MIT OpenCourseWare
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: In their new book "Mao: The Unknown Story" Jung Chang and Jon Halliday make an impassioned case for a reevaluation of Mao - as a tyrant worse than Stalin or Hitler. Based on a decade of research into previously untapped sources worldwide and on unprecedented interviews with Mao's inner circle and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him, this book raises new questions about Mao's role in the rise and success of the Chinese Communist movement.
Jung Chang is the author of "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China", a best-selling memoir that chronicles the sufferings of her family under Mao. Jon Halliday, her husband, is a British historian.
(Complete Item Description)
- Abstract: Since the mid-l970s, economic reforms have transformed China from one of the most egalitarian societies into one of the most unequal in the world. Wide disparities currently exist between the income levels of a relatively few rich and middle-class Chinese and their fellow citizens who number in the hundreds of millions. This "wealth gap" is particularly acute when one compares the incomes of urban and rural residents, between Chinese living in the interior of the country and those living in the rapidly developing cities on China's eastern coast.
The causes of the growing income gap include previous governmental policies that favored city dwellers over farmers, the uneven regional patterns of foreign investment, and the massive outflow of displaced farmers to China's already overcrowded cities in pursuit of manufacturing jobs.
Recently, the Chinese government, in recognition of the potential for social instability, and in the face of growing unrest amongst China's poor, has made the elimination of economic and social inequalities a top priority. Plans are in motion to build a more "harmonious society" through the delivery of improved educational and health services to those who appear to have been left behind in China's rush to modernize its economy.
This lesson, using clips from the WIDE ANGLE film "To Have and Have Not" (2002), can be used after a lesson on the Communist Revolution and Mao's rule. A basic knowledge of China's geography, of the tenets of Chinese Communism, and of Mao's efforts to redirect the course of China's future by means of the Cultural Revolution, is required for the successful completion of the lesson.
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