Tristan G. Brown, teaching MIT's course 21H.151 Dynastic China, covers the Western Zhou period and the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven that Zhou rulers used to justify overthrowing the Shang. He examines the structure of the Zhou state, addressing the long scholarly debate over whether the term feudalism accurately describes its decentralized network of regional lords and kinship ties. The lecture also introduces the Classics compiled or attributed to the Zhou era, texts that later became foundational to Chinese political and philosophical thought. Running just over an hour, this is part of a semester-long lecture series available through MIT OpenCourseWare, delivered in a standard classroom lecture format with Brown working through primary source concepts and historiographical debate for students building a chronological grasp of early Chinese dynastic history.