Taipei

Winner of the Joseph Levenson Post-1900 Book Prize. This cultural study of public space examines the cityscape of Taipei Taiwan in rich descriptive prose. Contemplating a series of seemingly banal subjectsmaps public art parksJoseph Allen peels back layers of obscured history to reveal forces that caused cultural objects to be celebrated despised destroyed or transformed as Taipei experienced successive regime changes and waves of displacement. In this thoughtful stroll through the city we learn to look beyond surface ephemera moving from the general to the particular to see sociocultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.. Watch the book trailer: youtube/watch?v=xBdGIoox7zM