About the Author:
C L Lu (呂正理), born in 1950, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Taiwan’s National Tsinghua University. He served as a senior executive in Taiwan and China at ICI, a multinational chemical company, later becoming a business consultant to clients operating in Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia. His passion, nevertheless, has always been for history.
His first book, History from a Different Perspective: A Polygonal-Interacting History of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Surrounding World, won the 2011 Taipei International Book Exhibition Award. In 2015, a simplified Chinese version of the book was published in Beijing under a different title: A Macrohistory of East Asia. In 2020, he published A Macrohistory of the Communist World: The Rise and Fall of Communism and Communist Parties. An updated and revised edition, A Macrohistory of the Communist World: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Ideal, was published in 2025. This book is the English version of the 2025 edition; it is the first of his works to be translated into English.
About the Translators:
Tim Smith (史天慕) is a long-time Taiwan resident and translator with an M.A. in Translation and Interpretation Studies from NTNU. His interests are in Taiwan literature and Taiwanese Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hakka languages, literatures, linguistics and folklore. He is also the translator of Banana King Ngôo Tsín-suī (《蕉王吳振瑞》) by author Lee Wang-tai (李旺台), longlisted for the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards Translation Prize.
Michael Nakhiengchanh has a bachelor’s in history from UT Dallas and a master’s in translation from National Taiwan Normal University. His thesis centered on Taiwan independence fighter Su Beng (史明). With five years of translation experience, he has worked on projects including games, novels, and children’s books. His work focuses on shining new light on Taiwan through its past.
About the Editor:
Ian Maxwell holds a bachelor's degree in English Literature with Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Since 2016, he has lived and worked in Taipei.
