Proceedings of the 18th International Academic Conference, London

TAIWAN IN THE SPAIN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS AND VICE VERSA

CHUN-WEN LIN, MIN-CHUAN SUNG

Abstract:

There are diverse approaches to peace building, and among them is international education, of which informed international understanding is the cornerstone. It goes without saying that when it comes to that understanding, a non-nationalist history textbook has to be developed first, for in a sense, history textbooks tell young people who they are and who others are and by so doing imply how to cope with these others. With that in mind, I explore how my country Taiwan has been (mis)understood in international history textbooks, and how the other country depicted in ours. The research results will serve as a stepping stone for future history textbook writing, if not international joint textbook construction. I have undertaken a 2-year research project examining Spain high school history textbooks to see how Taiwan has been described, and the preliminary findings go as the follows, which needs further analyses if more meaningful implications are to be drawn. 1. Although Taiwan was once a colony of Spain, it was not recognized as such in the textbooks. 2. Taiwan was not dealt with as an independent subject; it only appeared in juxtaposition with The Communist China. 3. Taiwan seemed to have existed as the Republic of KMT. The democratization since the mid-70s was not mentioned. And now the investigation goes to how Spain has been delineated in Taiwan history textbooks. Upon its completion, the comparison of the two countries will be made through a post-colonialist lens.

Keywords: Taiwan, Spain, history textbooks, post-colonialism

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.018.072

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