Historical dictionary of Taiwan (Republic of China) /

With about 100 pages more than the prior edition, also by Copper (1993), this version contains significantly updated information for most of the original entries. For instance, the entry on "228," which refers to the incident of 29 February 1947, encompasses the recent public apology by President Lee Teng-hui (1995) and the national holiday proclaimed in 1997. This edition has new entries on topics such as Macclesfield Bank and three other groups of islands in the South China Sea that are claimed by the Taiwanese government. The scope has been extended to cover geographically distant areas under some form of Republic of China military jurisdiction, and a new appendix covers 1998 statistical data. Although well written and carefully edited, this work has some mistakes; e.g., on page 77, the romanized form of the Chinese name for "Democratic Socialist Party" is confused with the party now in power, "Democratic Progress Party." A timely update, recommended for public and academic libraries. W. S. Wong; University of California, Irvine

This title in the publisher's Asian/Oceanic Historical Dictionaries series reflects changes since the first edition was published in 1993. --Mary Ellen Quinn