"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

During its fifty years of existence the People's Republic of China has seen dramatic changes, from the proclamation of the independent state through the period of the Communist Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, the Reform Period. These changes are analysed from the political, economic and social points of view, chllaenging accepted orthodoxy. Throughout, the emphasis is on change in the context of contemporary China, and as part of the Chinese Communist Party's search for paths to development.

In 1949 Mao Zedong hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City. Instead of liberating the country, the communists destroyed the old order and replaced it with a repressive system that would dominate every aspect of Chinese life. In an epic of revolution and violence which draws on newly opened party archives, interviews and memoirs, Frank Dikötter interweaves the stories of millions of ordinary people with the brutal politics of Mao's court. A gripping account of how people from all walks of life were caught up in a tragedy that sent at least five million civilians to their deaths.

These essays present fresh insights into the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from its founding in 1920 to its assumption of state power in 1949. They draw upon considerable archival resources which have recently become available.

Originally published in the early 1970s, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China has proved to be one of the most significant and enduring books published in the field. In this new critical edition of that seminal work, Mark Selden revisits the central themes therein and reconsiders them in light of major new theoretical and documentary understandings of the Chinese communist revolution.

Whether one views Mao Zedong as a hero or a villain, the ‘Great Helmsman’ was, undoubtedly, a pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century China, a man whose life and writings provide a fascinating window on the Chinese experience from the 1920s onward. Part Mao biography, part historical overview of the turbulent story of China’s Communist revolutions, the introductory essay traces the history of twentieth-century China, from Mao’s early career up to the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in 1949, through three decades of revolution to Mao’s death in 1976. The second half of the volume offers a selection of Mao’s writings — including such seminal pieces as "On New Democracy" and selections from the Little Red Book — and writings about Mao and his legacy by both his contemporaries and modern scholars.

Christina Kelley Gilmartin rewrites the history of gender politics in the 1920s with this compelling assessment of the impact of feminist ideals on the Chinese Communist Party during its formative years. For the first time, Gilmartin reveals the extent to which revolutionaries in the 1920s were committed to women's emancipation and the radical political efforts that were made to overcome women's subordination and to transform gender relations. Women activists whose experiences and achievements have been previously ignored are brought to life in this study, which illustrates how the Party functioned not only as a political organization but as a subculture for women as well. We learn about the intersection of the personal and political lives of male communists and how this affected their beliefs about women's emancipation. Gilmartin depicts with thorough and incisive scholarship how the Party formulated an ideological challenge to traditional gender relations while it also preserved aspects of those relationships in its organization.