Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan

In 1895, British Consul Lionel Charles Hopkins was summoned by the governor of Taiwan, to his yamen in Taipei and was handed a petition appealing to the British government to incorporate the island into a protectorate in the wake of impending Japanese invasion. The British declined. This book investigates this pivotal moment in Taiwan's history.

Introduction
1. The Petition: The History Behind a Document
2. 'The Poor in China Just Grab a Bag and Run Over': Han Pioneer Settlement in Formosa from the Seventeenth Century
3. The British Treaty-Port Community
4. 'And There the Twain Shall Meet': The Formation of an Urban Gentry in a Market Town in Northern Taiwan
5. The Spirit of 1895: Occupation, Capitulation, and Resistance
Conclusion