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Title: helpful overview with some holes.
Review: Copper presents a solid overview of Taiwan, its history, culture, politics and trajectory. If you are looking for a substantial and factual look at the island, this is a good place to start. The writing has an unfortunate tendency to plod, as Copper seems to often be merely relating facts and not necessarily telling a story. That makes the sections on economics and geography particularly excrutiating. There is also the problem of bias, as Copper seems to nearly be a Kuomintang appologist. Democratization is attributed to Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's dastardliness is dramatically played down, and the "White Terror" is not mentioned in the book at all. Thus, in some ways, the historical account doesn't gel with what many in Taiwan would tell you actually happened over the last 20-30 years. Regardless, this is still one of the most complete pictures of the island that you will find.
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