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Jonathan Clements
Jonathan Clements presented several seasons of Route Awakening…
DiscoverJonathan Clements at SOAS
Join Rebel Island author Jonathan Clements for a talk on the Zheng Cheng-gong (1624-62), as part of the SOAS Taiwan Studies Seminar Series.
Clements talks through the strange afterlife of Zheng Cheng-gong (1624-62), the Ming loyalist and conqueror of Taiwan, variously derided as a pirate and a rebel; lauded as a resistance leader and prince, twice deified, spuriously reclaimed as both a Japanese patriot and a Chinese "People's Hero".
Along the way, there are some unlikely legends, some suspicious shenanigans, and his co-option into a 2010 mayoral campaign that threatened to turn into a fistfight among historians.
For more information, visit the event website here.
Rebel Island
The gripping story of Taiwan, from the flood myths of ancient legend to its ‘Asian Tiger’ economic miracle — and the looming threat of invasion by China.
Once dismissed by the Kangxi Emperor as nothing but a ‘ball of mud’, Taiwan has a modern GDP larger than that of Sweden, in a land area smaller than Indiana. It is the last surviving enclave of the Republic of China, a lost colony of Japan, and claimed by Beijing as a rogue province — merely the latest chapters in its long history as a refuge for pirates, rebels, settlers, and outcasts.
In Rebel Island, Jonathan Clements offers a concise and…
