Unlike so many books on the Japanese Colonial Empire which tend to be quite narrow on their focus, this compulation covers the entire empire, formal and informal. Also to its credit, the essays inside are a good mixture of specifically focused and more broadly outlined writings. Overall it is a good buy for any level, from those just beginning to learn colonial history to those much more well versed.

The editor's introduction reads like a propaganda commissioned by the KMT on Taiwan. I am deeply disturbed at highly biased "beautification" of the KMT rule in Taiwan and the "demonization" of the PLC regime on Mainland China. I also think that the introduction is too much a hodge-podge of KMT orthodoxies and seriously lacking in critical thinking. While I applaud the long- overdu effort to translate Sun Yat-Sen' collective works into English and making available such an important canon of modern Chinese political thought to Western audience, I sincerely hope that the introduction will be revised for future editions to render more objective verdicts (and with more intellecutal depth), of the two regimes on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Theme: This book attempts to outline the democratisation process of Taiwan. The authors describe Taiwan as a form of "limited democracy," i.e. the govt gives the opposition and civil society space to expand, and the inhibited center is committed to promoting full democracy without a timetable.

Review: This book raises some good questions. The Taiwanese government chose not to monopolise control, but slowly relinquished some power to the opposition and civil society at large. While the authors described the phenomenon, they failed to address the "why."

I also felt that the authors were also somewhat careless with their definitions of "Chinese." (Note that the book is entitled "The first Chinese democracy.) They interspersed the book with comparisons between Taiwan and China, and Singapore. While China and Taiwan are made up of a Han Chinese majority, Singapore's politics is deeply affected by its multiethnic flavor! Are they moving onto the grounds of an "Asian democracy?"

Still, one must credit the authors for their groundbreaking choice of subject, and the plethora of information that they have provided.