''Formosa Betrayed'' ( zh, 被出賣的台灣) is a 1965 book written by George H. Kerr, a US diplomatic officer in Taiwan, who witnessed the

February 28 Incident The February 28 incident (also called the February 28 massacre, the 228 incident, or the 228 massacre) was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan in 1947 that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led nationalist government of the R ...

, and the corruption and killings committed by the KMT in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. It is one of the most influential books about

's transition from Japanese colonial rule. Kerr was working for the American Foreign Service at the time of the transition, and was present in Taiwan during the KMT occupation and resulting aftermath. ''Formosa Betrayed'' sharply rebuked the KMT administration and made arguments in favor of

Taiwanese independence The Taiwan independence movement is a political movement which advocates the formal declaration of an Independence, independent and Sovereign state, sovereign Taiwanese state, as opposed to Chinese unification or the status quo in Cross-Stra ...

. The book was originally published in 1965 by

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

. A Chinese-language translation was made in 1974, the English-language version was republished in 1976 by

Da Capo Press Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional offi ...

, a second English-language edition was published by Taiwan Publishing Co. in 1992, and a new Chinese-language translation was released in 2014.

References

Editions

* * * * * * * Da Capo Press books History books about Taiwan Works about the White Terror (Taiwan) {{Taiwan-hist-book-stub