"Book Talk: Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line"

Michael Szonyi, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, Asian Languages and Civilization, Harvard University

Introduced by Wen-hsin Yeh, Richard H. and Laurie C. Morrison Professor of History and Director, Institute of East Asian Studies.

Fifty years ago, during the height of the Cold War, the small island of Quemoy (Jinmen) in the Taiwan Strait was the front line in the military standoff between Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China on Taiwan and Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic. As a result, Quemoy became one of the most highly militarized societies in history, a place where daily life was inexorably connected to international geopolitics. Family life, the farm economy, and even religion became tied to decisions in far-off places: Taibei, Beijing, Washington, and beyond. Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line explores the impact of global politics on the lives of ordinary people. It offers a new approach to the social history of the Cold War, one that shows how geopolitics shaped individual lives and communities.