Smashing the Iron Rice Bowl: Chinese East Asia
MIT's course traces how ordinary Chinese people lived through the political upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the late Qing dynasty through the Communist revolution and beyond. Readings pair personal narratives and primary sources, such as memoirs and diaries, with a standard textbook and films, asking students to trace how individual and family decisions both respond to and drive large-scale social change. Discussion sections focus on connecting private experience, marriage choices, work, migration, to public events like war, famine, and land reform. Materials include a syllabus, weekly reading assignments, and discussion prompts published through MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access with no certificate offered. The course suits anyone wanting a ground-level view of modern Chinese history rather than a top-down political survey.