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On Power Up Taiwan Sino Cultural Enterprise Ltd.Co. Taipei. (February, 2005) Jen-shen Wu & Jun-yu Fang & Hsin-Yi Lin Received: 28 July 2008 /Accepted: 28 July 2008 / Published online: 12 February 2009 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2009 As a book of popular history, “Power Up Taiwan” indeed brought out the fun side of general history writing. The author uses a lot of phrases like “the first” and “the earliest.” For instance, the first person who uses electric light is Liu Ming-chuan, and the first water power station in Taiwan is Gueishan power station, etc. Such descriptions easily amaze the readers with the history of Taiwan’s electricity development. For a long time, we were used to viewing the initial period of postwar industrial history—especially the development of government-owned enterprise such as Taiwan Power Company or Taiwan Sugar Corporation—from the “reconstruction ” perspective. Here, the reconstruction means the reconstructing process for the damage caused by the second-world-war after the Japanese were sent back. But as a matter of fact, we knew nearly nothing about the origin of the industry’s development. The book could exactly mend the discontinuity of this historical gap. The intention to reveal a new look of culture and life through electrical development brings this book a bit closer to STS. Under the administration of Sotokufu in the primary stage, the social atmosphere in Taiwan was still turbulent, yet the electricity supply had already brought the people a modern life experience. After Gueishan power station started its operations in 1905, people in Taiwan realized through government administrations that the new regime has established a different way to serve them. That is, the government officials have to follow the application procedure for electricity supply, the same as ordinary citizens. Such interaction between the power station and the users gradually spurred Taiwan people’s civil consciousness about right and obligation. This case is stressed by the author to show that the process of technology development also brings changes to culture and a new way of thinking (p.54). Through the author’s description, we see that, under the colonial government’s high-pressure politics, there still exists a East Asia Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal (2008) 2:457–460 DOI 10.1007/s12280-008-9061-6 J.-s. Wu :J.-y. Fang :H.-Y. Lin (*) Department of Electrical and Control Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan e-mail: grace1212@gmail.com J.-y. Fang e-mail: jyfang@seed.net.tw modern notion of offering a greater service and convenience to the people. This book quotes a large amount of pictures and reports from the newspaper “Taiwan Ri-Ri-Xin,” which makes the discussion related to this issue much more lively and vivid. In this book, the fund-raising and tender bidding process for many electricity constructions also let the readers recognize another relationship between electric development and modernization. In 1896, Taipei Lights Company released its warrant to raise funds, and therefore started a modern business operation model. To estimate market response, the first market investigation in Taiwan was held, and the result also gives us a surprise. According to the investigation report, there were 1,675 electric lights in Taipei at that time. The potential clients were mainly in the service industry, such as bathhouses, photoshops, and restaurants (p.28–29). Another characteristic of this book is that it uses the phrases of modern business management to talk about Taiwan’s electricity development (p.101). The description is realistic and profound, with rich and various kinds of information, such as fund raising, costs for business operation, tender information, and so on. The second half of the book talks about the competitive construction bidding process for the SunMoon Lake project, and the open offer made by Taiwan Electric Power Corporation that caused the trend of stock investment all over Taiwan in 1919. The whole process makes the readers feel like he/she is reading real-time social news. From the author’s description to the electricity development, we can almost say that the business model, or the operation of capitalism in Taiwan, was already established early in the Japanese colonial period. The book...

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