Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line
Cambridge University Press, 7/17/2008
EAN 9780521898133, ISBN10: 0521898137
Hardcover, 328 pages, 23.4 x 15.7 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s the small island of Quemoy in the Taiwan Strait was the front line in the military standoff between Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China and Mao Zedong's People's Republic. Local society and culture were dramatically transformed. Michael Szonyi uses oral history, official documents, and dissident writings to convey the history of the island during this period. In so doing, he sheds light on the social and cultural impact of the Cold War on those who lived through it, as well as on the relationship between China, the United States and the USSR at this critical moment. By analysing the effects of Quemoy's distinctive geopolitical situation on the economy, gender and the family, and citizenship and religion, the book provides a new perspective on the social history of Cold War relations, showing how geopolitics can affect individual lives and communities.
1. Introduction
ordinary life in an extraordinary place
Part I. Geopoliticization Ascendant
2. The battle of Guningtou
3. Politics of the war zone, 1949–1960
4. The 1954–55 artillery war
5. Militarization and the Jinmen civilian self-defense forces, 1949-1960
6. The 1958 artillery war
Part II. Militarization and Geopoliticization Change Course
7. The 1960s
creating a Model County of the Three Principles of the People
8. The 1970s
combat villages and underground Jinmen
Part III. Life in Cold War-Time
9. Combat economy
10. Women's lives
military brothels, parades and emblems of mobilized modernity
11. Ghosts and Gods of the Cold War
Part IV. Demilitarization and Post-militarization
12. Demilitarization and post-militarization
13. Memory and politics
14. Conclusion
redoubled marginality.