“Taipei: City of Displacements by Joseph R. Allen

An exploration of the city of Taipei and the transformation of it’s public art, maps, and parks as it has been colonized by the Qing, the Dutch, the Japanese, and the KMT. It was a good read, but this is a very specialized subject that will be inaccessible to most people unless they are familiar with the history of Taiwan and Taipei. This books gives you a glimpse of the amazing place that Taiwan due to (or in spite of) it’s tumultuous history.

I wish this book went deeper into the effects of colonialism on Taiwan but the scholarship into this topic seems to have just begun. The archives on Taiwanese history have been closed for many years during the martial law period and the people here are still coming to grips with their past.

I bought this book from SMC Publishing Inc 南天書局有限公司, a local publisher of academic books. They have many other great books on Taiwanese history, and even old maps.

Rating: ★★★★ Book #41 in my My 2020 Reading Challenge

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