In their own way, the administrations of Ma Ying-jeou have been as eventful as those of his predecessors Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui. Ma's cross-Strait policies have transformed the temperature, while not resolving the underlying knot, of relations with China. Numerous agreements in trade, transportation, tourism, education and many other sectors have been signed, bringing a veneer of cooperation and conciliation to a relationship that is still underpinned by Chinese cruise missiles based in Fujian Province across the Strait. While divisions over Taiwanese national identity, which reached boiling point during Chen's tenure, have calmed, perhaps temporarily, under Ma, economic inequalities have risen to historical levels, partly due to his policies, where China again looms largest, and partly due to the global financial crisis. As many ordinary Taiwanese, especially the young, struggle with quality of life and upward mobility issues, discontent with Ma's policies and modus operandi has mutated into popular protests and social movements, culminating in the Sunflower occupation of the legislature. With the DPP taking a backseat to civil society for much of the period, the most intense political competition has not been between DPP and KMT, but within the KMT, complete with the bizarre machinations and festering conflict between President Ma and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng. Paraphrasing the editors of this volume, new uncertainties and old questions abound as we approach the end of Ma's final term.

This is the 13th title in Routledge's Research on Taiwan series, the majority of which are also edited volumes. With the demise of M.E. Sharpe's similar series in the early 2000s, the Routledge series edited by Dafydd Fell has become an important venue for work on Taiwan across the social sciences and humanities. Jean-Pierre Cabestan and Jacques deLisle's edited collection is a worthy recent addition. Based on a conference held in May 2012, the chapters cohere well and there is a sensible division of labour among the mainly senior scholarly contributors. Sections on domestic politics, the economy and society, cross-Strait relations, security and foreign relations cover a huge amount of ground. It is without question the most authoritative and comprehensive analysis of developments during Ma's first administration, up to and including some commentary on his re-election campaign.

The editors are to be congratulated for assembling a stellar cast of European, American and Asian scholars, keeping the contributions focused and providing a strong contextualizing introduction. The quality of scholarship and fluency of the writing is consistently high. Several chapters provide useful updates of ongoing research agendas into the Ma era, including Dafydd Fell's chapter on political parties, Sigrid Winkler's on Taiwan's participation in international organizations and Ho Ming-sho's chapter on the resurgence of social movements. Usefully, the section on cross-Strait relations provides perspectives from Taiwan, in the form of Fu-kuo Liu's examination of Ma's engagement policies, and Mainland China, via Chu Shulong's assessment of the Taiwan issue within China's broader “peaceful development strategy.” Taiwan's relationship with the US is the central focus of Richard Bush's chapter, and a major side issue in Gudrun Wacker's analysis of Taiwan's security environment and Cheng-yi Lin's piece on national defence.

For academics and other professionals working on China and the security environment in the Asia-Pacific, this book is a quick and accessible study on Taiwanese politics and cross-Strait relations between 2008 and 2012. For Taiwan specialists and students it is an essential guide to the first Ma administration, setting it alongside previous benchmark collections on individual presidencies like Mutthiah Alagappa's on Lee Teng-hui (Taiwan's Presidential Politics, M.E. Sharpe, 2003). My only, minor, quibble is that in focusing squarely on Ma an opportunity, and a degree of perspective, has been lost by not invoking more explicit comparisons with the preceding Chen and Lee eras. A stocktaking of developments during Ma's first term is a valuable contribution in itself, but given that we are now well into the fifth term for a directly elected ROC President, it would have been interesting to see how Ma's performance stacks up against his predecessors. This kind of historical perspective has, for instance, facilitated a recalibration of assessments of, what appeared to analysts at the time, the “uniquely crisis-ridden” tenure of Chen Shui-bian. The pressures of timeliness also leave the book somewhat vulnerable to intervening developments, some of which, coming soon after the period covered by the book, have been dramatic, such as the interventions of the Sunflower movement and the results of the 9-in-1 local elections. Nonetheless, these quibbles do not detract from a high quality and highly recommended volume.