Revolutions: Final Project: Home

You can examine:

1.  the legacy of a revolution we’ve already studied; or

2.  a 19th or 20th century revolution we bypassed (there are many - a partial list is below); or

3.  a current, possible revolution to try to determine if it should be categorized as a revolution. 

You will engagingly present your findings to your classmates on one of the last three class meetings in a format similar to what you used for the Revolutionary Women of WWII unit….unless you want to propose a different format, in which case speak with your teacher. 

If you choose B or C, to give your research structure you should apply historian Jack Goldstone’s “MAPIF” and/or “FoMoSoPo” standards.

Further particulars

Option A: Your choices are the French, Haitian, Russian, or Chinese Revs. The legacies of these indisputably globally important revolutions are much disputed, so you should be ready to wade into that debate.  After you revisit the key events and developments of the revolution, follow its contours up to today, and assess the revolution’s long-term outcome, influence, and/or significance. 

Option B:  Below is a partial list of relatively recent revolutions we did not study this year. Once you decide the revolution you want to study, you should structure your examination of it using historian Jack Goldstone’s “MAPIF” and “FoMoSoPo” approach to determining, respectively, the destabilizing pre-conditions of the revolution, and the conditions that constituted the revolution itself.

Option C:  With “MAPIF” and “FoMoSoPo” as your guides, examine a nation where - at the very least - substantial civil unrest is plain, the population appears to be ideologically motivated to join forces against the government, and the world is interfering or not such that would-be revolutionaries are empowered. 

This is a highly curated list of globally scattered revolutions of the past 150 years: 1866-68 Japan - Meiji Restoration ; 1895-98 Cuba - War of Independence ; 1896-98 Philippines - War of Independence ; 1910-20 Mexico - Mexican Revolution ; 1916-23 Ireland - Irish War of Independence ; 1916-47 India - India War for Independence ; 1945-49 Indonesia - Indonesian National Revolution ; 1945 Vietnam - August Revolution ; 1954-62 Algeria - Algerian War of Independence ; 1956-59 ; Cuba - Cuban Revolution ; 1961-75 ; Angola - Angolan War of Independence ; 1989 Czechoslovakia - Velvet Revolution ; 2004-05 Ukraine - Orange Revolution ; 2010-11 Tunisia - Tunisian Revolution

Minimum Required Sources

1. at least two (2) primary sources;

2. at least one (1) book you can hold in your hand;

3. no fewer than six (6) sources in total.