Jean Chesneaux (October 2, 1922 - July 23, 2007) is a historian specializing in East Asia, especially Vietnam and China. He was a professor at the Paris Diderot University and at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

Several publications bear witness to his academic activity, such as his study of Sun Yat-sen, written in 1959 and republished in 1982. In 1971 he published a book called Jules Verne, a political reading, which he redesigned under a new title thirty years later. He also wrote several articles on George Orwell in 1984. The title he chose for the English edition of his book Modernité-Monde was Brave Modern World, a transparent allusion to Aldous Huxley's famous book The Best of All Worlds (in English Brave New World).