Progressive Formosa
Hosoi Ryūtarō
Camphor Press | April 2022 (first published in 1926) | 160 pages
$2.99 (e-book) | ISBN
978-1-78869-267-0
$14.99 (paperback) | ISBN
978-1-78869-268-7
$24.99 (hardback) | ISBN
978-1-78869-269-4
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Description
In 1926 Taiwan – at the time known as Formosa – was imperial Japan’s model colony. Progressive Formosa was written to showcase the success of Taiwan under Japanese rule, with close attention paid to the markers of industrialization and “modernity”.
Progressive Formosa includes a political overview of Taiwan in the years leading up to Japanese control, discusses the impact of the colonial government on health and education, and delves into the agricultural and industrial development of the island. The first thirty years of Japanese rule saw monumental changes in Taiwan, including significant reductions in rates of opium addiction and deaths from malaria. For the first time in Taiwan’s history girls were formally educated en masse, and footbinding was outlawed. However, the book also reveals paternalistic and racist attitudes toward the inhabitants of Taiwan, particularly the Indigenous peoples.
Written by an official in the Foreign Section of the government, Progressive Formosa will be of interest to readers looking to understand the Japanese era in Taiwan as well as wider issues of colonialism and modernity.
About the Author
Hosoi Ryūtarō (細井柳太郎) was an official from the Foreign Section of the Government-General of Taiwan. Not much is known about him today, but he was for a time the official English translator for the head of the island’s colonial authorities and is mentioned (with the spelling “Hosui”) by both Janet Montgomery-McGovern in her book Among the Headhunters of Formosa and by Owen Rutter in Through Formosa. When the book was first published n this edition we credit the author fully for his work.
