In recent years, historians of Taiwan have topically and methodologically expanded the breadth and depth of the field. Drawing upon a wealth of newly accessible materials in Taiwan, Japan and elsewhere, they have explored the successive waves of colonization that have swept the island, and the effects that foreign settlement and rule have had on the formation of Taiwanese identity. Tonio Andrade makes an important addition to this scholarship with his work on the “co-colonization” of Taiwan during the 17th century. Andrade fluidly charts the creation, florescence and collapse of the Dutch colony (1624–61), firmly rooting that process in the context of regional events and rivalries.

The crux of Andrade's argument is that collective Sino-Dutch efforts created the first successful colony on Taiwan. This is convincing and, in both narrative and interpretive terms, constitutes Andrade's greatest contribution to the study of Chinese and colonial history. Previous studies have not examined the joint contributions of Dutch colonials and Chinese settlers in such depth. Through exhaustive research in the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), as well as archives in Spain, Indonesia and Taiwan, Andrade contributes much to our understanding of how the Dutch created a profitable colony on Taiwan, where all others had failed. They outlasted the Japanese, drove out the Spanish, and defeated and then gained the loyalty of aborigine villages near their settlement at Taoyuan. The true secret to Dutch success, however, was their decision to facilitate Han Chinese settlement. After pacifying the aborigines, VOC officials initially enticed Han settlement with land grants and favourable tax policies; promoted the success of sugar and rice farming; facilitated Chinese access to lucrative deer-hunting regions; and hired Han labour to build their colonial outpost of Zeelandia. The Dutch–Chinese relationship was symbiotic, and it created the golden age of the Sino-Dutch colony during the 1630s and 1640s. Drawing on the work of M. N. Pearson on the connection between revenue building and colonization, and that of John Wills on the “interactive emergence” of European colonies, Andrade explains why co-colonization succeeded while solo efforts failed. The trade-based revenues of European empires promoted the establishment of overseas colonies, but that task could not be accomplished without the assistance of a non-indigenous population. In detailed chapters on the Dutch–Spanish rivalry and comparisons to Manila and Batavia, Andrade also effectively shows that Taiwan was linked to a larger process of global colonial expansion.

Andrade further argues that the Dutch success was fragile, in part because of inequalities inherent within co-colonization. To maintain the profitability of their colony, the VOC sought a delicate balance between themselves, Chinese settlers and aborigines, while also ensuring that trade continued to flow into and out of Taiwan. When Chinese settlers and aborigines clashed over a diminishing deer supply, the Dutch interceded to control Chinese hunters through expensive, yet sought-after, licenses. When some Chinese farmers rebelled against increasingly harsh taxation, the Dutch relied on loyal Chinese and aborigines to crush the revolt. In short, the Dutch consistently experienced difficulties maintaining the balance. As trade revenues dried up during the 1650s, due to the conflict on the Mainland between Zheng Chenggong and the Qing Dynasty, the joint colony crumbled. Zheng's invasion in 1661 marked the end of both the co-colonial project in Taiwan and of the island's status as a profitable trading entrepot.

The book succeeds as both an analytic and narrative history, although there are some shortcomings. Its strengths lie in the extensive research, much of it in previously unused or underused Dutch and Spanish sources; the methodological linkages to the broader history of colonialism; and the detailed yet lively prose (although there are far too many typographical errors). Scholars of Chinese and colonial history and European empires will find the book of interest for their own studies and perhaps for teaching purposes; this work also exists as part of the Gutenberg-e online history series, and in that format it contains maps and images that would be even more useful in a classroom setting. However, certain claims are not thoroughly explored, such as Andrade's statement that his subject constituted the “first and most important stage of Taiwan's sinification,” (p. xvi). Why is this period more important than the 16th century Fujianese interest in Taiwan, the Qing's decision to retain the island in 1683, the late Qing Sinification process detailed by Emma Teng, Taiwan's Imagined Geography (Harvard University Press, 2006), or the post-1945 re-Sinification process outlined by Stephen Phillips, Between Assimilation and Independence (Stanford University Press, 2003)? Andrade also does not really tell us how Taiwan became Chinese, because the process of making the island and its residents a part of the Chinese cultural sphere or a Chinese nation involved much more than the arrival of some 30,000 Fujianese. Nevertheless, this is an important book that should be read by anyone wishing to learn more about 17th-century Taiwan or the history of colonialism in East Asia.