Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West

Few readers probably know that the Dutch ruled Taiwan in the 17th century. Andrade, associate professor of history at Emory University (How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century), delivers a lively history of an occupation that ended after the greatest war between European and Chinese forces until the Opium War of the 19th century. Although a backwater in 1624 when the Dutch arrived, Taiwan had become a prosperous commercial center by the time China’s Ming dynasty fell in 1644. Defeated by the new Manchu rulers, Koxinga, a Chinese general and Ming loyalist, turned his attention to the island. Andrade, having discovered a number of original documents, concentrates on Koxinga’s successful 1661 invasion. The result is a surprisingly detailed history of a brutal campaign in which the author repeatedly emphasizes that Koxinga (and Chinese leaders before him) had studied and adopted Western military advances. In this original and illuminating account, Andrade thus casts doubt on the traditional view that Europe surged to global dominance after 1500 because Asian nations ignored its superior organization and technology. Illus.; maps. (Nov.)