For folks in Vancouver, I'll be giving a talk about my book, In the Global Vanguard, in-person at the University of British Columbia Centre for Chinese Research on November 28, 3-5pm. Many thanks to @profjulietlu.bsky.social!

I'll be giving a talk virtually on my book, In the Global Vanguard, at the University of Nottingham Taiwan Research Hub next Wednesday. Please feel free to join if you are based in the UK/Europe!

Excited to read @heguisen.bsky.social’s new book Ghost Nation!

Excited to see the translation of Kaori Lai 賴香吟's Portraits in White 白色畫像 published in English by Columbia UP! Translated by Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt, commissioned by Ian Rowen, and a historical introduction written by yours truly. cup.columbia.edu/book/portrai...

Read the rest of this history in the open access link, or purchase a physical copy with the discount code UCPSAVE30 for 30% off. If you are at an academic institution, please also consider requesting your library purchase a copy of the book. /8

Taiwan’s development successes were plastered in media headlines, evidence of how modern and successful Taiwan was. This extended to bolster the bona fides of the authoritarian Kuomintang government that ruled Taiwan, providing an economic and modern legitimization of their martial law. /7

Behind the facade of uplift was the co-opting of global decolonization and scientific modernity to further Taiwan’s political aims. The risk of expulsion from the United Nations and international system led Taiwan's state planners to agricultural science and rural reform as a technical panacea. /6

Taiwanese agricultural technicians extolled the virtues of their approach to crop improvement, land reform, and farmers associations. In contrast with development from wealthy nations, Taiwanese proclaimed their methods were more suitable to subtropical, poor, and postcolonial societies. /5

In the 1950s, the narrative takes a turn to the global, which I argue became a crucial stage for Taiwanese development. Taiwan began to send development missions to all corners of the world: Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, beginning with Vietnam. /4

For example, Taiwan's planners represented land reform as an act of social benevolence and technical mastery. Deploying the language of contracts and financial instruments, the state showed how it transformed peasants into petty capitalists and landlords into stockholding industrial capitalists. /3

In the Global Vanguard is a history of modern Taiwan, told through the lens of agrarian development. It begins with how development arose as an purposeful state project with origins in rural social movements, missionaries, and later, state-led land reform. (Table of contents attached here) /2

Check out my book at the @ucpress.bsky.social booth at @asianstudies.org in Columbus!

Physical copies are arriving! If you are attending AAS next week, you can find my book at the @ucpress.bsky.social exhibit booth! www.ucpress.edu/books/in-the...

I will be giving a talk on my forthcoming book, In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan, at Princeton on February 28. Please join if you’re in the area! @ucpress.bsky.social eas.princeton.edu/events/globa...

I will be presenting online today (11/27 1pm Taiwan time) at National Yangming Chiaotong University on a research project I'm working on exploring the intersection of Taiwan and Cold War studies. Please join if you're free! www.facebook.com/share/p/12AL...

I'll be giving an in-person talk (a first in many, many years) on my forthcoming book at Ohio State University on March 25. Hope to see OSU folks there! easc.osu.edu/events/ics-l...