Since its inception following World War II, the field of contemporary Chinese studies has been confronted by a series of extraordinary events. The first generation of specialists, schooled in a classical sinological tradition that stressed China's unique cultural continuity, was immediately challenged by what seemed-at least on the face of it-a major rupture with the past: the Communist Revolution of 1949. Not surprisingly, these specialists' efforts to explain this momentous aberration defined the initial contours of contemporary Chinese studies. Although scholarly opinion on the nature of the revolution was deeply divided, the debate centered on the extent to which the ideology and practice of Chinese communism could be said to reflect indigenous cultural influences, as opposed to a wholesale importation of the Soviet model.
