Selected Resources for Studying Taiwan History

(Prepared by Tao Yang in January 2005)

This list of resources was compiled for the history 475B class. It is not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography; instead, in order to meet the needs of the class, the focus is on electronic resources and English-language materials.

About the East Asia Library (Who we are; where we are; what we do).

Finding Background Information with Reference Tools

Historical Dictionary of Taiwan
Call# DS798.96 C67X 1999, Starr Main Reference Room
Edited by John F. Copper; includes chronology of events, an introductory essay, dictionary (of  place names, people's names, and terms), and bibliography (of English sources).

Britannica Online
The entry on Taiwan is outdated, but may be still useful for checking historical facts and finding background information.

World Biographical Index
In this database, users can find index entries of significant names (such as Koxinga, Lee Teng-hui) in Taiwan history. Both pinyin and Wade-Giles spellings would work. Full biographical entries are available on microfilm (under the title Chinese Biographical Archive) in the library.

Finding Books

Orbis
Yale Library online catalog;
Limit search results in English if you don't need Chinese materials;
For more precise search, use subject headings such as:
--Taiwan History Febraury Twenty Eighth Incident
--Taiwan History Autonomy and independence movement

*Please consult a librarian if you want to find subject headings more specific to your research question.

Morris
Yale Law Library catalog. Try Law Library if you can't find a book in Orbis (especially when it's related to social science or law).

Eureka
Union catalog of research libraries in North America. SFX will lead you to ILL if a book is not available in Yale collection.

WorldCat
Union catalog of many libraries in the world. SFX will lead you to ILL if a book is not available in Yale collection.

To obtain books from outside of Yale, use BorrowDirect or Interlibrary Loan.

Finding Journal Articles

There are many index and full text databases you can use to find journal articles. The following are the ones important to Asian studies. The differences between these databases are outlined in the table.

For historians, Historical Abstracts is another relevant subject index database.

You will see the SFX icon in JStor, Academic Search, and Historical Abstracts. SFX is a tool that allows you to find article full text from citation, even though the full text and the citation are in different databases. It will also search Orbis for book or journal titles and links you to Interlibrary Loan service. Click on it next time and see what happens!

There are so many databases you can use. Where do you want to begin? This depends how thorough your research is required to be and how much time is available to you.

**The online access to Free China Journal/Taiwan Journal
1989-1998 in Factiva (1997-1998 in Lexis Nexis);
2003-present on the web.

Finding News Reports

World News Connection
Translations of news reports provided by FBIS from around the world, including Taiwan. The Taiwan sources are Central News Agency and Taipei Times. Coverage: 1996 to present.

FBIS Electronic Index
Index to the FBIS Daily Reports. Coverage: 1975-1996.

Lexis Nexis Academic Universe
Has news reports from Taiwan's English presses, including China Post, Central News Agency, and Free China Journal back to 1990s. The length of coverage varies.

Factiva
Also provides access to Central News Agency and Free China Journal.

Web Sites

Foreign Relations of the United States
"Presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity". Useful while studying U.S. policy towards Taiwan. Only selected volumes from 1945-1968 are available online. A complete print set of F.R.U.S. is housed in the Government Docuements and Information Center at Mudd Library. A list of all F.R.U.S. volumes is also available online.

Government Information Office of Taiwan
has news headlines and the full text of some government publications in English, including Taiwan Journal.

Formosa: Nineteenth Century Images
Developed by Reed Institute. "This digital library gathers together a large body of primarily European and American images of the island of Taiwan -- called "Formosa" by foreign visitors in the 19th Century -- and its various peoples. These textual representations, woodcuts, maps, and linguistic data were originally published in European and North American books and journals during the 19th Century, but are not easily accessible to those interested in the history of Taiwan today."

Taiwan Communique
A pro-independence periodical published in English. The full text of the issues from 1983 to 2004 is available there.

F.A.P.A. (Formosan Association for Public Affairs)
A powerful pro-Taiwan lobbying group based in the U.S.

Resources for Further Study

Dissertations and Theses Full Text (Digital Dissertations)
Has the full text of dissertations published after 1997 unless objected by the author. Has abstract for dissertations published before 1997.

Printed Bibliographies of western-language works:
Taiwan shi ying wen zi liao lei mu = A Bibliography of English-language Sources for Taiwan History (1995)
Call#: Z3115 C43 East Asia Library Reference
Compiled by Ruoshui Chen; includes bibliography of both primary sources and secondary sources in English. Coverage up to 1991.

Three other bibliographies of western language sources may also be useful.
Taiwan, compiled by Wei-chin Lee, published in 1990. Call# Z3116 L44 1990 Available in Starr Main Reference Room.
Taiwan: a comprehensive bibliography of English-language publications, compiled by J. Bruce Jacobs et al., published in 1984. Call# Z3116 J33. Available in Starr Main Reference Room and CCL.
For pre-20th century western works, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l'île Formose (by Henri Cordier) might be useful. Call# X881 +893c (LSF). You may request it to be delivered to any campus library through Orbis.

Selected Chinese Sources:
Taiwan wenxian congkan, a collection of Chinese sources on Taiwan history, available through Scripta Sinica .

Taiwan Yanjiu Ziyuan (Resources for Taiwan Studies)
A list of Chinese and Japanese resources for Taiwan studies compiled by the National Taiwan University Library.

Taiwan Memory
A digital library that is being developed by the National Central Library of Taiwan. Has online collections of bibliography, images and primary sources related to Taiwan history.