According to Pankaj Mishra, Frank Ditkotter's works in regards to the Cultural Revolution are "boldly and engagingly revisionist." Is this symptomatic of a wider questioning of Dikotter's works at large, or is this more a squabble between two feuding historians rather than a divide among the Chinese historical academia as a whole?
Forgive me if I'm being dense, not being familiar with the historians in question, but I read the quote "boldly and engagingly revisionist" as a pretty hefty compliment, not a questioning. Do you have the source from which you drew this quote? It might help understand why this reads as a negative comment on his work.
/u/terrigantor
I'll stick to a short answer because you are posting from what looks like a throwaway account. I see two issues in your question:
You are citing Pankaj Mishra something something two feuding historians, who was then working as an essayist for The New Yorker Magazine, in what was essentially a review of Dikotter's book. This was followed up in a later article comparing the works of Dikotter and of Yang Jisheng, a journalist-by-training who is acknowledged as having pioneered a new perspective in the study of the Great Famine. Mishra is not a historian by training nor by trade, and he does not present himself as one. Yang Jisheng is a journalist-by-training and background who has done terrific work in the archives of the PRC. I assume you obfuscate these three unintentionally when you ask about "two feuding historians". This is a minor point in the heart of the question, but there is no feud between Dikotter and Mishra, rather the feud is between Dikotter and Yang.
Criticisms of Dikotter's Mao's Great Famine tends to focus on two aspects. First is the estimate of death tolls and reasons for them. I won't go over this here because this is a very active area of disagreement among active historians, and you'll do yourself a favor by going directly to them instead of relying on reddit hacks like myself ;-). Second is analysis of Mao's intention, thinking, and action. In particular Dikotter claims that Mao had made a bombshell comment that Dikotter says translates to "When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." He claims that this came about in a meeting in 1959. Dikotter's own website helpfully provides his key arguments here.
This last point is perhaps the best known aspect of the criticisms of Dikotter's work, as it is very very very very well-cited. The problem is, Dikotter says it came from a (regional) party archive in the PRC and that Dikotter signed an agreement to not make a copy nor to circulate the document.