The Tragedy Of The Chinese Revolution

Description

The story of contemporary China typically dates back to Mao's 1949 revolution. But in this classic work of Marxist scholarship, historian Harold Isaacs uncovers how workers and peasants struggled for a different kind of revolution in the 1920s, one built from the bottom up. The defeat of their heroic efforts profoundly shaped the further course of modern Chinese history.

Harold Isaacs was a writer and long-time student of Chinese affairs. The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, his first book, was based largely on long-hidden original historical documents and has been recognized for many years as preserving the historical truth that would otherwise have been erased by the revolution's betrayers. Isaacs' loyalty was not to a party or ideology, but to the "martyrs" of the 1925-1927 revolution to whom he dedicated his work and to the millions who fought for a more just and humane Chinese society.

"This is an excellent narrative: it is clear, exciting, and well-balanced in evidence and interpretation. Isaacs provides a detailed yet highly digestible account of the 1925-27 revolution, its roots, and its consequences. The book... successfully counters the tendency for the 1949 divide to 'flatten[s] the jagged course of history into an uninformative curve that hides from us too much of the meaning of both past and present.'" -Sigrid Schmalzer, Assistant Professor of History University of Massachusetts, Amherst