"All Chinese of a certain generation--those in mainland China, KMT refugees, and even native Taiwanese--were ravaged and left desolate by war and political upheaval. Meyer's eloquent and starkly drawn depictions of how students were fined for speaking Taiwa

"Civil wars have casualties long after they are over. The movement of several million mainland Chinese to Taiwan in 1949 changed that island's history and guaranteed its autonomy. It also produced multiple traumas, for locals and mainlanders alike. This b

Mahlon Meyer is a lecturer in Chinese history at the University of Washington.