This book began as a year-long ethnography of a school in Taiwan in 1991 then evolved more into a historical sociology of national formation and its cultural mindset.  Cultural nationalism is a widely debated but poorly understood process.  Contrary to prevailing perceptions, the Cold War may have given way to a more progressive open society, but the politicization of ethnicity hardened a more deeply entrenched cultural frame of mind.  Instead of liberating an indigenous reality, Taiwanese consciousness has ironically polarized the political dead ends of reunification and independence.  In the final analysis, the ethnography can serve as a paradigmatic case study for critical cultural studies. There are clear ramifications also for a comparative study of the cultural politics of other Chinese speaking or Asian societies and their histories.

Chapter One: Ethnography as Cultural Geography.- Chapter Two: The Spaces of Nationalist Culture in Taiwan.- Chapter Three: Education and the Sociology of the Normal.- Chapter Four: School Routines in Time and Space.- Chapter Five: Socialization in the Longer View.- Chapter Six: Nationalist Ideology in the Politics of Normalization.- Chapter Seven: Anthropology as Writing Power.