Revolutionary Taiwan

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>This book is in the </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Cambria Sinophone World Series</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> headed by Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania).</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>In the early 1990s the people of Taiwan gained the right to vote for their executive and legislature. In building a democratic society they transformed how they saw themselves and their homeland. The outcome of democratization was nothing less than revolutionary producing a new de facto nation and people that can be justly called Taiwanese.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Yet this revolution remains unfinished and incomplete. In an era of increasing US-China rivalry the People's Republic of China (PRC) claims sovereignty over Taiwan and insists that reunification is the historic mission of all peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The PRC threatens war with and over the island inviting a crisis that would engulf the region and beyond.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Common ideas about Taiwan-that it split with China in 1949 or sees itself as the true China-fail to explain why the Taiwanese withstand pressure from the PRC to relinquish their democratic self-governance.</span></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Revolutionary Taiwan</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> sheds light on this. Each chapter shows how democratization in Taiwan constituted a revolution changing not just the form of government but also how Taiwanese people conceptualized the island coming to see it a complete nation unto itself. At the same time however Beijing has blocked the normal endpoint of this revolution: an open declaration of statehood and welcome into the global community.</span></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> brings the Taiwan story to a general audience. It will appeal to students and readers interested in international relations contemporary geopolitics and East Asian Studies. Informed by years of academic research and life in Taiwan this book provides an entry point to a remarkable place and people.</span></p>