By concentrating on the ambivalent history of Macau, the author reveals the historical reality of cultural vacillation between two political entities and the emergence of a creole minority - the Macanese. With a judicious use of English, Chinese and Portuguese sources, she has provided a multi-focal perspective of the last Portuguese outpost in Asia. In light of the 'decolonization' of Macau in December 1999, the author's analysis challenges the easy assumptions of the causal sequence, colonialism/postcolonialism, and opens up an interdisciplinary purview of a local instance in cross-cultural studies.'--BOOK JACKET.