SOAS Research Online

Abstract

A number of developments suggest that we are now witnessing a golden age of international Taiwan Studies. This stands in stark contrast to the situation when we began studying Taiwan. At that time there was not yet a sense of Taiwan Studies as a field, but instead Taiwan was often regarded as a marginal topic on the edge of Chinese Studies. In the mid to late 1980s academic books on Taiwan were quite rare. From 1989 though there was a progressive increase in the numbers of books being published on Taiwan’s politics, rising to a peak of almost 20 per year in 1999. Since 2000 the expansion in Taiwan Studies books and journal publications has continued with the Routledge Research on Taiwan and Harrassowitz Studia Formosiana series playing key roles. In this book we propose an alternative way of plotting the development of the Taiwan Studies field by asking authors to revisit their earlier influential books. Generally we asked authors to revisit their earlier works at least ten years after the original publications. To a certain degree the chapters are autobiographical as authors discuss not only what sparked their initial research interest but also how their academic careers have developed since their initial books. In each case we asked the authors to address a number of themes in their chapters. First, we wanted to get a sense of the origins of their research projects and how they conducted the research design. Then they discuss the methodologies and sometimes the fieldwork they adopted to answer their core research questions. Next they briefly discuss the main findings and arguments in their respective books. Where the books had been reviewed we asked authors to outline how the books were reviewed and how they now feel about these reviews today? Similarly we wanted the authors to reflect on how they feel about the methods and findings now? Has the study stood the test of time? Would they do anything differently if they could turn back the clock? We were also curious about what the authors did after these influential volumes. Have they continued studying the topic since and if so what are they doing differently? Have they moved into different research areas or are they still in the shadow of their earlier work? We have selected books and published works that cut across key time periods in the development of the Taiwan Studies field.