This book focuses in the Spanish presence in Taiwan during the years 1626-1642. It examines the motives which drove the Spaniards to come to Taiwan. There were two main reasons for the Spaniards to come to Taiwan from Manila; firstly, so that the civil authorities might counterbalance the Dutch expansion, which since 1625 had been threatening the traditional trade between Fujian and Manila; and secondly, to enable missionaries to find a staging post to enter Japan in moments of strong persecution, and to create an alternative entry point into China.

The initiative and leadership for this edited volume came from the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) based in Brussels. The book discusses questions related to the different European perspectives on Taiwan in various fields, asking, in particular: How has the European Union dealt with the unsolved status of the Republic of China on Taiwan? In which ways has Europe been seen as a model for Taiwan’s transformation, and, does the example of the EU offer any lessons for cross-Strait integration? Furthermore, the authors, well-known specialists drawn from disciplines, such as, economics, political science, international law, history, and cultural studies, are equally interested in Taiwan’s perspectives on Europe and in the historical relationship between Taiwan and Europe.

​​Archaeologies of Early Modern Spanish Colonialism illustrates how archaeology contributes to the knowledge of early modern Spanish colonialism and the "first globalization" of the 16th and 17th centuries. Through a range of specific case studies, this book offers a global comparative perspective on colonial processes and colonial situations, and the ways in which they were experienced by the different peoples. But we also focus on marginal “unsuccessful” colonial episodes. Thus, some of the papers deal with very brief colonial events, even “marginal” in some cases, considered “failures” by the Spanish crown or even undertook without their consent. These short events are usually overlooked by traditional historiography, which is why archaeological research is particularly important in these cases, since archaeological remains may be the only type of evidence that stands as proof of these colonial events. At the same time, it critically examines the construction of categories and discourses of colonialism, and questions the ideological underpinnings of the source material required to address such a vast issue. Accordingly, the book strikes a balance between theoretical, methodological and empirical issues, integrated to a lesser or greater extent in most of the chapters.​

The dispossession of indigenous peoples by conquest regimes remains a pressing issue. This book, unlike most other books on the subject, contrasts two different colonial administrations – first the Chinese Qing Empire, then, from 1895, the Japanese. It shows how, under the Chinese legal system, the Qing employed the Chinese legal system to manage the relationship between the increasing numbers of Han Chinese settlers and the indigenous peoples, and how, although the Qing regime refrained from taking actions to transform aboriginal land tenure, nevertheless Chinese settlers were able to manipulate aboriginal land tenure to their advantage. It goes on to examine the very different approach of the Japanese colonial administration, which following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 had begun to adopt a Western legal framework, demonstrating how this was intentionally much more intrusive, and how the Japanese modernized legal framework significantly disrupted aboriginal land tenure. Based on extensive original research, the book provides important insights into colonisation, different legal traditions and the impact of colonial settlement on indigenous peoples.

An exploration of the deportation of Mexican military recruits and vagrants to the Philippines between 1765 and 1811.

A major new interpretation of the Zheng family of merchants and militarists, who dominated the seventeenth-century China Seas.

On 19 April 1895, British Consul Lionel Charles Hopkins, at the northern port of Tamsui, was summoned by Tang Jingsong, the governor of Taiwan, to his yamen in the western district of Taipei. Shortly after his arrival, Hopkins was handed a petition. Signed by a number of Taiwanese ‘notables’, the document appealed to the British government to incorporate the island into a protectorate in the wake of an impending Japanese invasion. The British declined. This book addresses the interconnectivity of these two communities, by focusing on the market town of Dadaocheng in northern Taiwan. It seeks to contextualise and examine the establishment of a ‘settler society’ as well as the creation of a sojourning British community, showing how they became a precursor of modernity and ‘middle classism’ there. By uncovering who the signatories of the petition were and what their motivation was to call upon the British consulate to bring the island under its protection, it brings into focus a remarkable period of transition not only for the history of Taiwan but also for the modern history of China. Using 1895 as a year of enquiry, it ultimately challenges the current orthodoxy that modernity in Taiwan was simply a by-product of the Japanese colonial period. As a social and transnational history of the events that took place in Taiwan during 1895, this book will be useful for students of East Asian Studies, Modern Chinese Studies and Asian History.

Using Taiwan as a case study, this book constructs an innovative theory of a political sociology of language. Through documentary and ethnographic data and a comparative-historical method the book illustrates how language mediates interactions between society and the state and becomes politicized as a result; how language, politics and power are intertwined processes; and how these processes are not isolated in institutions but socially embedded.

In Incomplete Conquests, Stephanie Joy Mawson uncovers the limitations of Spanish empire in the Philippines, unearthing histories of resistance, flight, evasion, conflict, and warfare from across the breadth of the Philippine archipelago during the seventeenth century. The Spanish colonization of the Philippines that began in 1565 has long been seen as heralding a new era of globalization, drawing together a multiethnic world of merchants, soldiers, sailors, and missionaries. Colonists sent reports back to Madrid boasting of the extraordinary number of souls converted to Christianity and the number of people paying tribute to the Spanish Crown. Such claims constructed an imagined imperial sovereignty and were not accompanied by effective consolidation of colonial control in many of the regions where conversion and tribute collection were imposed. Incomplete Conquests foregrounds the experiences of indigenous, Chinese, and Moro communities and their responses to colonial agents, weaving together stories that take into account the rich cultural and environmental diversity of this island world.

"What does it mean to be Taiwanese? This question sits at the heart of Taiwan’s modern history and its place in the world. In contrast to the prevailing scholarly focus on Taiwan after 1987, Becoming Taiwanese examines the important first era in the history of Taiwanese identity construction during the early twentieth century, in the place that served as the crucible for the formation of new identities: the northern port city of Jilong (Keelung).Part colonial urban social history, part exploration of the relationship between modern ethnicity and nationalism, Becoming Taiwanese offers new insights into ethnic identity formation. Evan Dawley examines how people from China’s southeastern coast became rooted in Taiwan; how the transfer to Japanese colonial rule established new contexts and relationships that promoted the formation of distinct urban, ethnic, and national identities; and how the so-called retrocession to China replicated earlier patterns and reinforced those same identities. Based on original research in Taiwan and Japan, and focused on the settings and practices of social organizations, religion, and social welfare, as well as the local elites who served as community gatekeepers, Becoming Taiwanese fundamentally challenges our understanding of what it means to be Taiwanese."