Book Description

Until 300 years ago, the Chinese considered Taiwan a "land beyond the seas," a "ball of mud" inhabited by "naked and tattooed savages." The incorporation of this island into the Qing empire in the seventeenth century and its evolution into a province by the late nineteenth century involved not only a reconsideration of imperial geography but also a reconceptualization of the Chinese domain. The annexation of Taiwan was only one incident in the much larger phenomenon of Qing expansionism into frontier areas that resulted in a doubling of the area controlled from Beijing and the creation of a multi-ethnic polity. The author argues that travelers' accounts and pictures of frontiers such as Taiwan led to a change in the imagined geography of the empire. In representing distant lands and ethnically diverse peoples of the frontiers to audiences in China proper, these works transformed places once considered non-Chinese into familiar parts of the empire and thereby helped to naturalize Qing expansionism.

By viewing Taiwan-China relations as a product of the history of Qing expansionism, the author contributes to our understanding of current political events in the region.

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on December 22, 2005. The length of the article is 626 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683-1895.(Book review)
Author: Murray A. Rubinstein
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 67Issue: 4Page: 784(2)

Article Type: Book review

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Focus on Geography, published by American Geographical Society on December 22, 2004. The length of the article is 4481 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Earthquake hazards in Taiwan--the September 1999 Chichi earthquake.
Author: Engelbert Altenburger
Publication: Focus on Geography (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2004
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 48Issue: 2Page: 1(8)

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