ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Chinese historians since 1949, involved in their own "social controversies," as Laslett called them, have treated the English Bourgeois Revolution. Among Chinese historians, both Marxist and non-Marxist, of the early 1950s, there was no agreement on the dividing line between medieval and modern in world history. The Chinese choice of the English Bourgeois Revolution as the starting point of modern history depended on more than the fortunate adoption of one Soviet scholar's work over another's. Compared to the predominant position the peasants played in reinterpreting China's past, the emphasis it receives in the interpretation of the English Bourgeois Revolution may seem more balanced. When compared to most Western and even earlier Chinese accounts, however, the peasants' role looms much larger. The peasants' role, seen as the motive force since the 1950s, and even the validity of revolutionary violence are questioned.
