Martin Edward Malia (March 14, 1924 – November 19, 2004, Oakland, California) was an American historian specializing in Russian history.
In it he challenges the traditional Leftist interpretation of communism as a fundamentally sound project, that admittedly went wrong during Stalin's regime, but in later years succeeded in creating a credible alternative to capitalism.
The Soviet system could therefore not tap the reservoir of human potential that its ideology promised to bring to new heights.
In the eighth chapter Malia gives a survey of debates about the French Revolution from the 19th century up to our time.
In the official Berkeley obituary, Riasanovsky is quoted as saying of Malia that he was an "outstanding and now very popular historian, occupying a leading position in the present international discussion of the collapse of the Soviet Union and what that collapse means historically and for the future.