Designed for educators and anyone interested in modern and contemporary China's history, this website presents more than twenty interactive biographies of famous and more obscure objects of China's Mao Era (1949-1976). Each object biography includes an essay that introduces and contextualizes the object's history, and shows how it shaped politics, culture, economy, society and everyday day life during this tumultuous time. Essays are accompanied by several historical primary sources, including photos, propaganda posters, translated newspaper articles, brief memoirs, videos, and so on, many of which are available for download. Additional features include an interactive timeline and map, an essay by Michael Schoenhals on “Objects that mattered” in contemporary Chinese history, a guide for using the website as a teaching resource, and a further readings list. Teachers of Chinese history at schools and universities will find the resource particularly useful as a complement to existing textbooks.
http://maoeraobjects.ac.uk/
