In Revolution and History, Arif Dirlik examines the application of the materialist conception of history to the analysis of Chinese history in a period when Marxist ideas first gained currency in Chinese intellectual circles. His argument raises questions about earlier interpretations of Marxist historiography by scholars who based their opinions primarily on post-1949 writings.

Arif Dirlik is Associate Professor of History at Duke University and author of The Origins of Chinese Communism (1989).

"Arif Dirlik has produced a valuable study of Marxist historiography. . . . The story of the appeal of historical materialism to Chinese revolutionaries has been told before, but the context here is fuller and the questioning more multifaceted than earlier writings."—Wang Gungwa, American Historical Review

"Students interested in the intellectual currents of China's stormy passage in the 1920s and 1930s will find in the present volume considerable elucidation of one of the important streams. Arif Dirlik has written the first full treatment in English of China's acceptance of Marxist historiography."—D.W.Y. Kwok, History Teacher

"A fascinating contribution to Marxist historiography and to the history of Marxist historiography. Dirlik's story of the reemergence of the modes of production debate in the early years of the Chinese revolution has much to tell us about that debate itself, and not least about its intimate relationship to political practice and revolutionary strategy."—Fredric Jameson, Duke University