Abstract

Maurice Meisner was an important scholar of twentieth-century Chinese history, whose work focused on the ideological and bureaucratic dimensions of the People’s Republic and its origins in the upheavals of the first half of the century. This review considers aFestschriftincluding contributions from eight former students of Meisner, with articles on a wide array of topics across the period from the 1920s to the early twenty-first century. Strengths and limitations of Meisner’s work and his legacy are presented in conjunction with reflections on the underlying issues of the nature of contemporary China and its role in the world, and some related recent scholarly debates on the Left.