Taiwan’s history is a tapestry woven from indigenous cultures, colonial encounters, authoritarian rule, and democratic transformation. For anyone seeking to understand this island’s remarkable journey, these ten books offer invaluable perspectives that illuminate different facets of Taiwan’s evolution.
George Kerr’s Formosa Betrayed remains a foundational text for understanding one of Taiwan’s darkest chapters. Published in 1965, this firsthand account by an American diplomat chronicles the February 28 Incident of 1947 and its aftermath, when Kuomintang forces brutally suppressed a Taiwanese uprising. Kerr’s passionate narrative provides crucial context for Taiwan’s long period under martial law and the island’s subsequent democratic movements. While some historians debate aspects of his interpretation, the book’s emotional power and detailed observations make it essential reading for grasping the trauma that shaped modern Taiwanese identity.
For a comprehensive overview that spans centuries, Tonio Andrade’s *How Taiwan Became Chinese* offers accessible yet scholarly analysis of the island’s transformation from an indigenous homeland to a Chinese-dominated society. Andrade carefully traces the Dutch colonial period, Zheng family rule, and Qing dynasty incorporation, demonstrating how Taiwan’s identity emerged through successive waves of migration and conquest. His nuanced approach avoids simplistic narratives while making complex demographic and political shifts comprehensible to general readers.
Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, who inhabited the island for thousands of years before Han Chinese settlement, deserve central attention in any historical reckoning. Scott Simon’s *Sadyaq Balae! Upholding the Faces of Taiwan’s Indigenous Seediq* focuses specifically on the Seediq people, whose 1930 Wushe Uprising against Japanese colonial authorities represented one of the most dramatic episodes of indigenous resistance. Simon combines anthropological insight with historical analysis to show how indigenous communities have maintained cultural identity despite centuries of colonization and assimilation pressure.
The Japanese colonial period from 1895 to 1945 fundamentally reshaped Taiwan’s infrastructure, economy, and society. Leo Ching’s Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation examines how this fifty-year period created new forms of Taiwanese identity that persist today. Ching analyzes the contradictions of Japanese modernization efforts, which brought education, railways, and public health systems while simultaneously imposing cultural assimilation and racial hierarchy. Understanding this period is crucial because many Taiwanese, particularly older generations, maintain complex attitudes toward Japanese rule that differ markedly from mainland Chinese perspectives.
Steven Phillips’ Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taipei Mission and Taiwan’s Path to Democracy takes readers through the critical decades following World War II, when Taiwan’s political future remained uncertain. Phillips uses diplomatic archives to show how American policy toward Taiwan evolved and how various Taiwanese factions navigated between accommodation with the Kuomintang regime and aspirations for self-determination. This diplomatic history helps explain why Taiwan’s international status remains so contested today.
For understanding Taiwan’s democratic transformation, Shelley Rigger’s Why Taiwan Matters provides an engaging account of how an authoritarian state became one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. Rigger explains the gradual loosening of KMT control, the rise of opposition movements, and the peaceful transfer of power that marked Taiwan’s democratization in the 1980s and 1990s. Her book also addresses Taiwan’s economic miracle and the “Taiwan identity” that emerged as the population began seeing themselves as distinct from mainland China.
Taiwan’s economic development deserves examination alongside political history. Robert Wade’s Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization includes substantial analysis of Taiwan’s developmental state model. Wade demonstrates how government planning, strategic industries, and export-oriented policies transformed Taiwan from an agricultural economy into a high-tech powerhouse. Understanding this economic transformation helps explain Taiwan’s current global significance, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing.
Emma Teng’s Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895* offers a fascinating look at how Chinese literati and officials perceived Taiwan during the Qing dynasty. Through travel writings, maps, and illustrations, Teng reveals how Taiwan was imagined as a wild frontier requiring civilization, a perspective that influenced Chinese attitudes toward the island for generations. This cultural history adds depth to understanding cross-strait relations by showing how long-standing prejudices shaped perceptions of Taiwanese difference.
For Taiwan’s twentieth-century authoritarian period, A-chin Hsiau’s Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism examines how cultural movements challenged KMT orthodoxy even before formal democratization. Hsiau analyzes literature, language policy, and identity politics to show how Taiwanese intellectuals gradually articulated an alternative vision of the island’s past and future. This cultural perspective complements political histories by revealing how ordinary Taiwanese people negotiated identity under authoritarian constraints.
Finally, Evan Dawley’s Becoming Taiwanese: Ethnogenesis in a Colonial City focuses on the port city of Jilong (Keelung) to explore how diverse populations developed a shared Taiwanese identity. Dawley’s microhistory reveals that “Taiwanese” identity emerged not from ancient ethnic unity but through the lived experiences of people from different backgrounds who found common cause under Japanese colonialism. This sophisticated analysis challenges essentialist notions of identity while grounding abstract concepts in concrete urban history.
These ten books collectively demonstrate that Taiwan’s history defies simple narratives. The island has been shaped by indigenous societies, Dutch and Spanish traders, Qing administrators, Japanese modernizers, Chinese nationalists, and democratic reformers. Each wave left lasting imprints that continue influencing Taiwan’s politics, culture, and international position. Reading across these works reveals an island whose people have repeatedly adapted to new circumstances while maintaining distinct identities that resist easy categorization. For anyone seeking to understand contemporary cross-strait tensions, Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance, or its robust civil society, these historical foundations prove indispensable.