Academic interest in Mao Zedong’s role in the Chinese Revolution remains intense, as scholars and commentators continue to analyze his thinking and the history of the movement for clues about the Chinese model and its supposedly unique features. The debate about Mao’s career and influence is now enlivened by the consequences of the dramatic turn by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) away from the radical socialism he is said to represent and its granting of a far greater role to the market, though without shedding much of its political power.

Collections of primary sources on Mao Zedong and CCP history, written by the communists themselves, are readily available but informed scholarship is indispensable to explain these sources and to put them in proper perspective. What were Mao’s objectives? Were they consistent? In what ways did Mao manipulate the CCP and the state to his own political ends? To what extent did his political vision dominate Chinese politics in the revolutionary years and after 1949? And where is Chinese communism now headed?

This new major work will help to identify some of the answers. Bringing together the best scholarship, reportage, and other materials, the collection includes the following:

scholarly studies by Westerners on Mao’s life and work, including wide-ranging studies of Mao’s political career as a whole

psychological studies

studies on his role in the urban years, the rural period, the Japanese War, the Civil War, the 1950s, the deepening of the revolution under the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the final years

specialist essays on his views on topics such as philosophy, literature, economics, and the Soviet Union

studies on his interpretation of Marxism

assessments of his role in the Chinese Revolution by Soviet China watchers.

Comprehensively indexed and with an introduction newly written by the editor, a leading expert in the field, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Revolution is a vital reference resource for all scholars and students of Chinese communism.

Gregor Benton is Professor Emeritus of Chinese History at Cardiff. He has published twelve prior books on Marxism, political humor, the history of the Chinese Communist Party, Red guerillas in the 1930s, the Sino-Japanese War, dissent in China, Chinese Trotskyism, Hong Kong, the theory of moral economy, and overseas Chinese. His Mountain Fires: The Red Army's Three-Year War in South China, 1934-1938 (1992) won several awards, including the Association of Asian Studies' prize for the best book on modern China.