Over the past few decades, the history of Taiwan has become a hot academic specialty, and breakthroughs have been many, but the field remains plagued by a certain lack of depth. Ever since the Ming loyalist Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) ruled over the island in the late 17th century, almost all Chinese-language scholarship on the subject has consisted of written tracts, with very few visual images.
近十幾年來，台灣史研究儼然已成顯學，成果豐碩，但也苦於「縱深」的不足：鄭成功以降的中文記述多以文字為主，缺乏細膩的圖像資料；日文人類學研究雖然豐饒多元，卻多侷限於據台之後。