The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution

The story of contemporary China typically dates back to Mao’s 1949 revolution. But in this classic work, Harold R Isaacs uncovers how workers and peasants struggled for a different kind of revolution, one built from the bottom up, ini the 1920s. The defeat of their heroic efforts profoundly shaped the further course of modern Chinese history. "Isaacs’s book represents a scientific work from beginning to end. It is based on a conscientious study of a vast number of original sources and supplementary material…. The author of this book tries to deduce the character of the Chinese Revolution not froma prioridefinitions adn not from historical analogies, but from the living structure of Chinese society and from the dynamics of its inner forces. In this lies the chief methodological value of the book. The reader will carry away not only a better-knit picture of the march of events but – what is more important – will learn to understand their social mainsprings." -From the introduction by Leon Trotsky