Great Exodus From China - Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang examines one of the least understood migrations in modern East Asia - the human exodus from China to Taiwan when Chiang Kai-shek's regime collapsed in 1949. Peeling back layers of Cold War ideological constructs, he tells a very different story from the conventional Chinese civil war historiography that focuses on debating the reasons for Communist success and Nationalist failure. Yang lays bare the traumatic aftermath of the Chinese Communist Revolution for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were forcibly displaced from their homes across the sea. Underscoring the displaced population's trauma of living in exile and their poignant 'homecomings' four decades later, he presents a multi-event trajectory of repeated traumatization with recurring searches for home, belonging, and identity. This thought-provoking study challenges established notions of trauma, memory, diaspora, and reconciliation.

Product details

• Authors: Dominic Yang, Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 24.09.2020
• EAN: 9781108478120
• ISBN: 978-1-108-47812-0
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 235 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Print on demand
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; China, Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, Taiwan, HISTORY / Asia / General, Social & cultural history, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, Social and cultural history, Asian History, The Cold War, Cold wars and proxy conflicts