At the beginning of the 1600s, Taiwan was a sylvan backwater, sparsely inhabited by headhunters and visited mainly by pirates and fishermen. By the end of the century it was home to more than a hundred thousand Chinese colonists, who grew rice and sugar for export on world markets. This book examines this remarkable transformation. Drawing primarily on Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese sources, it argues that, paradoxically, it was Europeans who started the large scale Chinese colonization of the island: the Spanish, who had a base on northern Taiwan from 1626 to 1642, and, more importantly, the Dutch, who had a colony from 1623 to 1662. The latter enticed people from the coastal province of Fujian to Taiwan with offers of free land, freedom from taxes, and economic subventions, creating a Chinese colony under European rule.Taiwan was thus the site of a colonial conjuncture, a system that the author calls co-colonization. The Dutch relied closely on Chinese colonists for food, entrepreneurship, translation, labor, and administrative help. Chinese colonists relied upon the Dutch for protection from the headhunting aborigines and, sometimes, from other Chinese groups, such as the pirates who ranged the China Seas.In its analysis the book sheds light on one of the most important questions of global history: how do we understand the great colonial movements that have shaped our modern world? By examining Dutch, Spanish, and Han colonization in one island, it offers a compelling answer: Europeans managed to establish colonies throughout the globe not primarily because of technological superiority but because their states sponsored overseas colonialism whereas Asian states, in general, did not. Indeed, when Asian states did, European colonies were vulnerable, and the book ends with the capture of Taiwan by a Chinese army, led by a Chinese warlord named Zheng Chenggong.

Tonio Andrade（歐陽泰）

美國耶魯大學歷史系博士，艾摩利（Emory）大學歷史系助理教授。專長領域為近代早期世界史、中國海洋史、華人海外社群、殖民主義比較研究。主要研究興趣為西方、非西方的殖民活動，特別專注於東亞地區。目前專注於研究臺灣漢人在歐洲人所提供的軍事、行政、法律設施內移民擴張的活動，未來則將此一研究視野擴張到如菲律賓、雅加達、麻六甲等地華人移民與歐洲人的接觸互動情況。

鄭維中

政治大學社會學碩士，臺灣大學社會學研究所博士班，荷蘭萊登（Leiden）大學歷史系博士候選人，國科會專案擴增留學獎學金獲獎人。碩士論文已由前衛出版社於2004年出版：《荷蘭時代的臺灣社會》，主題為以文化史的視野觀察荷治時期荷蘭人與漢人、原住民間的社會互動。並譯有：韓家寶（Pol Heyns）著，《荷蘭時代臺灣的經濟、土地與稅務》（播種者出版社於，2003年）、與韓家寶合著有：《荷蘭時代臺灣告令集，婚姻與洗禮登錄簿》（南天出版社，2005年），以及《製作福爾摩莎》（如果出版社，2006年）。前兩書均榮獲曹永和文教基金贊助出版。