This book brings together a group of experts on Taiwan who attempt to analyse change on this dynamic island during the whole of the twentieth century. Thus, in contrast to many works on Taiwan, the nine papers show just how important the Japanese colonial antecedents were to the formation of today's Taiwan and help us to understand the complexity of the problems this island will face in the twenty-first century. The work of the various authors, many of them young Taiwanese, also show clearly that a simple divide of Taiwan's twentieth century history with the retrocession to Chinese rule in 1945 is not adequate for understanding the development of this island.