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Until the seventeenth century, Professor Knapp reminds us, Taiwan lay obscure off the southeast coast of China-an island cloaked in anonymity and inhabited principally by aborigines. Then, rather abruptly, the island was thrust into the maelstrom of European commercial expansion in East Asia, which in its wake drew Chinese peasant pioneers across the straits to Taiwan. This is the story, told from many viewpoints, of how Taiwan was transformed over a period of three centuries from a raw frontier to a stable entity with social and economic patterns similar to those found along the coastal mainland of southeastern China.
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In discussions of postcolonial nationhood and cultural identity, Taiwan is often overlooked. Yet the island—with its complex history of colonization—presents a particularly fascinating case of the struggle to define a “nation.” While the mainland Chinese government has been unequivocal in its resistance to Taiwanese independence, in Taiwan, government control has gradually passed from mainland Chinese immigrants to the Taiwanese themselves. Two decades of democratization and the arrival of consumer culture have made the island a truly global space. Envisioning Taiwan sorts through these complexities, skillfully weaving together history and cultural analysis to give a picture of Taiwa...