"The individual lives presented here range across time and social strata, presenting the experiences of people from a variety of professions, ethnicities, ages, genders, and political alliances. Configurations of place, time, ethnicity, and alliances are complex, as in the story of an Indigenous man drafted into the Japanese military to fight in the Pacific Islands during World War II, and that of a Taiwanese pop star drawn into political conflict between Taiwan and China. The tales' attention to the layered, complex, and interwoven fabric of colonialism allows us to consider the degree to which Taiwan has moved into a post-colonial narrative"--