Given the paucity of detailed English-language scholarship on the veterans of China's Civil War (1927–1950)—particularly narrative accounts of life after the war from the veterans themselves—Joshua Fan's book, China's Homeless Generation: Voices from the Veterans of the Chinese Civil War, 1940's-1990's is a valuable contribution. Fan's interesting book highlights the post-war lives of Kuomintang (KMT) soldiers, some of whom at a young age were forced—either by KMT officers or desperation—to join the military, but who later migrated to Taiwan during the “traumatic exodus from home” in the late 1940s at the end of the Chinese Civil War (p. 17). This focus sheds light on a largely forgotten and forlorn group within Taiwanese society and modern Chinese history more broadly.

The “voices” and “foundation of this study,” are provided by data gathered from interviews with 25 veterans living in Taiwan and the mining of nearly 900 oral histories and memoirs linked to members of the Homeless Generation from collections across Taiwan; Fan thus contributes to an effort by academics to preserve the stories and experiences of these veterans before they are lost (p. xv). His methodological approach succeeds in achieving the work's first aim: allowing the veterans who suffered the physical and emotional homelessness on the island, no matter how saddening their words might be, to “speak for themselves whenever possible” (p. xv). Fan's second aim challenges the misconception that all KMT migrants from the mainland (Waishengren) held a privileged and exploitative standing over local residents of Taiwan (Benshengren) after migrating during the Communists’ final advance. This forms a central theme throughout the text. According to Fan, of the roughly 2 million Waishengren who fled to the island—now referred to as China's Homeless Generation—most “came to Taiwan with little or no wealth” and “were treated as outsiders” upon arrival (p. 2).

A particular strength of the book is that it does not analyze the outcomes of the Chinese civil war, and only briefly touches on the China–Taiwan relationship at the national scale. This could dash certain readers’ hopes of investigating the struggle that was the Chinese civil war. Instead, the book provides a vivid elucidation of both personal and collective challenges veterans faced, by establishing the idea of home (jia), and what it has meant for them as Waishengren living on Taiwan. Organized into an introduction, four main chapters, and a conclusion, the book begins with a brief introduction (Chapter 1) about Taiwan's local inhabitants before and after KMT arrival, covering Chinese diaspora, and the “invisibility” of the Homeless Generation in the real world, Chinese diaspora studies, and in scholarly discussions about China's Civil War (p. 5). Leaving home, or Lijia, is the emphasis of Chapter 2, as it investigates the shared experiences of soldiers during and immediately prior to escaping the mainland. Like the remaining chapters, Chapter 2 provides narrative accounts from the veterans, focusing on who they were, the personal circumstances that drove them to join the military, and why they embarked on the difficult journey to Taiwan. As Fan highlights, “at the time of the exodus” those originating from provinces other than Fujian and Guangdong “were completely unfamiliar” with Taiwan (p. 34).

Chapter 3 focuses on homelessness (Wujiakegui) by examining how most laobing, or “old soldiers,” were emotionally and often physically homeless in Taiwan. The different experiences of army and air force personnel in finding a place to live are also examined, and air force personnel are seen to have fared better than those in the army. This chapter begins to address Fan's goal of challenging the myth that all Waishengren on Taiwan were a privileged group. “For the vast majority of Waishengren,” writes Fan, “finding a suitable place to live was a serious problem,” and most laobing “were forced to build their own temporary dwellings” (p. 56). In addition to the KMT's Military Marriage Regulations, which often prevented soldiers from starting families, the lack of education and employable skills, along with language barriers, contributed to “prolonging their homelessness” (p. 56). The only path out of homelessness for many laobing was to establish a home, or Chengjia, on Taiwan (Chapter 4). Often this meant that veterans married in less than ideal circumstances simply to create an emotional home. Here, Fan is particularly detailed in illuminating the ways those veterans’ attempts to establish an emotional sense of home with a family were equally important as establishing a physical one.

Perhaps Fan's greatest contribution to investigating China's Homeless Generation is the focus on huijia, or “returning home,” in Chapter 5. After the “long-awaited legalization of travel to Mainland China” during the 1980s, many laobing returned to the mainland seeking out family members and the places they had left behind decades before. However, many realized that they were outsiders not just “in the eyes of Benshengren in Taiwan” but also “where they were born and raised” (p. 139). For many, the “collective dream of returning home” was painfully ruined by a reality too unlike their memory of home—with the result that only a few stayed on the mainland (p. 139). Hence, the vast majority returned to Taiwan for a host of unfortunate reasons—furthering their sense of homelessness. The conclusion (Chapter 6) discusses generational differences between first- and second-generation Waishengren on Taiwan since the 1980s, most notably the difficulty Waishengren and the Homeless Generation had in becoming New Taiwanese, or Xin Taiwanren—an identity based on the “common experiences” of those living on the island “instead of [on] ethnic differences” (p. 3).

In closing, China's Homeless Generation, part of the Routledge Contemporary China Series, is both moving and insightful. Still, this reader feels a closer comparison with literature on veterans’ post-war experiences from other conflicts both in and outside of East Asia and the use of more maps and photographs would enrich the reading experience. None of these quibbles undermine the originality of Fan's study. If someone asks you to recommend a book regarding modern Taiwanese history or Chinese diaspora, this certainly should be one of the suggestions.