Isle of Time
Taiwan Under Martial Law: White Terror, Cold War, and Economic Takeoff (1950–1979)

The Silent Island

11 Volumes

Vol. 1

Party-State Governance

During the martial law era, Taiwan's party-state-military trinity permeated every corner of society....

Vol. 2

The White Terror

On May 20, 1949, the Taiwan Provincial Government declared martial law, initiating thirty-eight year...

Vol. 3

Disillusioned Intellectuals

At the historical crossroads of the mid-twentieth century — as the Second World War had only just en...

Vol. 4

Cold War Frontline

After the Korean War erupted in June 1950, the United States reversed the Truman administration's ea...

Vol. 5

The Luku Incident

At one of the harshest moments of Cold War confrontation in the 1950s — while the smoke of the Chine...

Vol. 6

Purge of Indigenous Elites

Beneath the shadow of Cold War confrontation and martial law in the mid-twentieth century, Taiwan’s ...

Vol. 7

Military Power Purge

In the turbulent historical crossroads of the 1950s Cold War escalation, after the Nationalist gover...

Vol. 8

Cross-Ethnic Alliance

Amid the intensifying Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during t...

Vol. 9

A Declaration of Independence

In the early autumn of 1964, the nights in Taipei felt suffocatingly still, as if even the wind had ...

Vol. 10

The Economic Miracle

The land reforms of the 1950s — the 37.5% rent reduction of 1949 that capped tenant rent at 37.5 per...

Vol. 11

Cultural Control

During the martial law era, cultural production in Taiwan was subject to tight state control exercis...