How to Stage a Revolution
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this history course examining how revolutions overthrow rulers and build new governments, comparing major political upheavals across different centuries and regions. Lessons weigh whether radical change requires violence or terror, and ask why some revolutions succeed while others collapse into failure or restoration. Course materials draw on primary sources: writings of revolutionaries, declarations, constitutions, along with music, films, art, novels, memoirs, and newspapers from the periods studied. The approach treats revolution as a category to be tested against cases rather than a single storyline, comparing episodes from different eras and continents. As with other MIT OpenCourseWare offerings, the site provides syllabus, readings, and assignments used in the actual MIT class, free to access, with no certificate offered through OCW itself.