Taiwan - by Evan N Dawley (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Taiwan's story as told through its people and their origins, struggles, and transformations.

While most English language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, this history centers on the people of Taiwan themselves and explores how they have formed a unique polity, telling the story of the Indigenous Taiwanese, the Hoklo and Hakka who came from China before the twentieth century, Japanese colonialism, and the Chinese who arrived after 1945. Historian Evan N. Dawley describes how successive waves of immigration changed Taiwan and how these diverse groups of Indigenous tribes and settlers interacted economically and culturally, creating new Taiwanese identities in the process. Over the last century, Taiwan has developed from an authoritarian state to one of the world's most vibrant democracies and advanced economies. A successful independent society, it is one whose existence remains under a shadow.

Review Quotes

"No other volume better introduces Taiwan's complex history and political development in such a thorough yet accessible way. It is a must-read for those new and familiar with East Asian history and politics."--Lev Nachman, author of "Contested Taiwan"

"The arrival of Dawley's Taiwan: A People's History could not be better timed. Written in an admirably accessible style, it offers an original approach and is chockful of engaging nuggets. Based on deep familiarity with the literature, a thorough amount of original research, and much time in the field, Dawley's book is required reading."--Thomas Gold, University of California, Berkeley

"This is the book the world has been waiting for! Since Taiwan is one of the world's geopolitical hotspots, the history of the Taiwanese people is needed to understand their views. Dawley's gem of a book is at once rigorous scholarship, a delightful read, and a courageous act of decolonization."--Scott E. Simon, University of Ottawa

"This is the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched history of Taiwan in the English language. Among the foremost historians of Taiwan in the Anglosphere, Dawley masterfully distills millennia of history, from Indigenous settlement to Taiwan's democratization, into one book. Dawley underscores the profound and multifarious effects of settler colonialism on Taiwanese peoples and, consequently, the emergence of a layered and complex Taiwanese identity and nationhood."--James Lin, University of Washington

"Too often, Taiwan is regarded as the object of other nations' ambitions. Dawley rejects that approach, making Taiwan's people the subject of their own story and the agents of Taiwan's extraordinary history. Dawley describes the waves of human settlers who populated the island to reveal the distinctiveness and complexity of contemporary Taiwanese society."--Shelley Rigger, Davidson University

About the Author

Evan N. Dawley is associate professor of history at Goucher College, Maryland. He is the author of Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City, 1880s-1950s.