Bruce Jacobs is probably the best Australian observer of Taiwanese politics. His political inclination is well known: he is clearly in favour of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan's independence. Thus, as expected his book's cover has opted for a splendid green colour and includes a black-and-white photograph of a late-1980s pro-democracy demonstration that shows a banner denouncing with nicely calligraphed traditional Chinese characters the "old thieves" (laozei: the Republic of China representatives "elected" on the mainland in 1947-48) and asking for constitutional reform. However, this picture also encapsulates not only the complexity of Taiwan's political history and the ambiguities of its identity but also the central objective of Bruce Jacobs's book: explaining Taiwan's democratization.
展开▼
