Formosa: Licensed revolution and the home rule movement, 1895-1945

by George H. Kerr

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Marcus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the only book I could find in PDF form that covers the entirety of the Japanese colonial period on Taiwan. For my basic goal of developing a general understanding of the major historical facts of that period, the book did a decent job. I know understand how the Japanese used the baojia system of collective punishment, the trafficking of opium into potentially uncooperative communities, along with sheer violence and a relatively unsuccessful promotion of state Shinto to keep Taiwan under control. That being said, some apparent factual errors such as the persistent inclusion of Cantonese speakers as a substantial population on Taiwan alongside speakers of Minnan, of Hakka, and indigenous people leave me with some doubt about the accuracy of other claims. More importantly, the book reads, like most of Kerr’s work, more as an anti-KMT polemic than trustworthy scholarship. While I don’t think this book serves as apologia for imperial Japan, and does go into detail about their atrocities in Taiwan, Kerr’s characterization of the Taiwanese as desiring a clean break with the Chinese past in favor of a western future apprehended through Japan is certainly western chauvinist and Sinophobic.

[Marc Kirner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good historical story that helps you to understand the call on Taiwan to be an independent country & not part of the PRC.