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  • Disease, Colonialism, and the State: Malaria in Modern East Asian History
  • Yunjae Park
Ka-che Yip (ed.), Disease, Colonialism, and the State: Malaria in Modern East Asian History Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009. x + 161 pp. US$59.50.

Malaria, one of the oldest diseases in human history, has attracted the interest of many medical historians. However, malaria in East Asia, where in some places it is still endemic, has not received the attention from scholars that it deserves. Ka-che Yip makes an ambitious attempt to write about the history of malaria in modern East Asia with the help of specialists who have been working on this topic for more than a decade. The cases they analyze in Disease, Colonialism, and the State: Malaria in Modern East Asian History come from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Okinawa, and mainland China.

This book's main focus is on the modern state, including colonial administration. The most important economic resources during the development of industrialization were human beings, who, without proper measures, would easily fall victim to contagious diseases like malaria. Regardless of colonial or independent status, the state had major concerns about the protection of their people's health. The intervention of the state in antimalaria programs was inevitable, because the fight against malaria required stable governments with the will, determination, and authority to provide full backing to implement necessary measures. The authors of this book investigate the role the state performed, the elements that made the state take a specific course of action, and the consequences of the state's antimalaria measures.

When analyzing the state's role, the authors do not seem to be too interested in the nationality of government power. Rather, they point out that one of the most important features was the continuance between colonial and postcolonial status. For instance, Yip (in chapter 7) argues that Japan's social support system played an important role in the post-World War II antimalaria programs in Taiwan.

Although the authors of this book mainly want to reveal the state's role in anti-malaria efforts, their concerns do not remain there. One of the goals they try to achieve is to show society's change with the implementation of antimalaria measures. Colonizers utilized antimalaria measures to modernize, civilize, and enlighten the [End Page 123] "backward" indigenous communities. For instance, colonial government in Hong Kong, as depicted by Yip in chapter 2, began to identify the issue of sanitation with lifestyle and living conditions of Chinese communities, connecting antimalaria policy with environmental improvement and sanitation reforms.

In chapter 3, Ku Ya Wen points out that there was an important change of anti-malaria measures with respect to controlling mosquitoes triggered by Japan's assimilation policy in 1919. This change was intertwined with Japan's political intention to transform the Taiwanese people and the environment to meet Japanese standards. Yet, according to Ku, Japan's effort apparently did not succeed, for the Taiwanese people—many of whom were resistant and apathetic—made Japan change their colonial policy.

In chapter 4, Liu Shiyung points out the limitations of the preventive strategy of colonial government. In further investigating the Taiwan case, he mentions that although the malaria mortality rate showed a downward trend, there was a regional difference in Taiwan. He reveals that the spatial aspect is an important factor when estimating an antimalaria policy.

One of the purposes of this book is to show that change took place not only locally but also at the center of the empire. The antimalaria model was not just exported to local communities or colonies from the center of the empire, as Wataru Iijima (chapter 5) describes in the Okinawa case; rather, the reverse was true. He emphasizes that the antiparasite method based on the Taiwan model remained the primary course of action, and that to support the antimalaria programs Japan utilized the ruling experience of Taiwan. For instance, they reorganized the social system, which, with the use of DDT, finally helped eradicate malaria.

Yip (chapter 7) also investigates the interchange between prewar experiences and postwar activities, focusing on the postwar experiences of Taiwan. He emphasizes that the experiences of Nationalists in...

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