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This book examines the history of a military expedition the Japanese government sent to southern Taiwan in 1874, in the context of Japan’s subordination to Western powers in the unequal treaty system in East Asia. It argues that events on the ground in Taiwan show the Japanese government intended to establish colonies in southern and eastern Taiwan, and justified its colonial intent based on the argument that a state must spread civilization and political authority to territories where it claimed sovereignty, thereby challenging Chinese authority in East Asia and consolidating its power domestically. The book considers the history of the Taiwan Expedition in the light of how Japanese imperialism began: it emerged as part of the process of consolidating government power after the Meiji Restoration, it derived from Western imperialism, it developed in a dynamic relationship with Western imperialism and it increased Japan’s leverage in its competition for influence in East Asia.
A Companion to Japanese History provides an authoritative overview of current debates and approaches within the study of Japan’s history. Composed of 30 chapters written by an international group of scholars Combines traditional perspectives with the most recent scholarly concerns Supplements a chronological survey with targeted thematic analyses Presents stimulating interventions into individual controversies
Choi examines how global Christian networks facilitated the flow of ideas, people and material culture, shaping gendered modernity in Korea.
An almost perpetual peace -- The crisis of imperialism -- Reform and revolution -- A newly ancient Japan -- The impatient nation -- The prudent empire -- Conclusion
This unique book portrays the evolution of Meiji Japan through the life of crusading journalist Edward H. House (1836-1901). In chapters that alternate between history and biography, James Huffman, shows how one man bridged continents--shaping American attitudes, influencing Japan's movement toward modernity, and providing a contemporary critique of imperialism. Huffman also captures the human drama of House's life: his early bohemianism, the mystical way Japan drew him, the painful struggle with gout, the joy and torment of adopting a Japanese girl, his fight for women's education, and the vicissitudes of friendship with Mark Twain. Meticulously researched, the book draws on House's voluminous writings and on hundreds of letters between House and major figures in both America and Japan, including Mark Twain, U.S. Grant, John Russell Young, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Okuma Shigenobu, and Inoue Kaoru. With its lively, accessible prose and seamless interweaving of the life of House with the history of the Meiji era, this book will be welcomed by students, scholars, and general readers interested in modern Japanese history and in America's nineteenth-century foreign relations.
The political influence of temples in premodern Japan, most clearly manifested in divine demonstrations—where rowdy monks and shrine servants brought holy symbols to the capital to exert pressure on courtiers—has traditionally been condemned and is poorly understood. In an impressive examination of this intriguing aspect of medieval Japan, the author employs a wide range of previously neglected sources to argue that religious protest was a symptom of political factionalism in the capital rather than its cause. It is his contention that religious violence can be traced primarily to attempts by secular leaders to rearrange religious and political hierarchies to their own advantage, thereby...
Annotation This is a book about "geographical imagination" through the prism of maps, travel accounts, fiction, and other cultural works that helped fashion understandings of space and place in early modern Japan.
When Valleys Turned Blood Red tells the story of colonial policies and their tragic impact on local communities. The Ta-pa-ni Incident of 1915 was the largest single act of Han Chinese armed resistance during the fifty years of Taiwan’s colonial era. More than a thousand villagers and Japanese were killed during the fierce fighting and thousands more were later arrested and made to stand trial. Based on detailed archival research, interviews with survivors, painstaking demographic analysis, and a thorough reading of secondary scholarship in all of the relevant languages, Paul Katz examines the significance of the Ta-pa-ni Incident by focusing on what Paul Cohen terms history’s “three keys”: event, experience, and myth. Katz provides a vivid description of events surrounding the uprising as well as the ways in which it has been mythologized over time. His primary emphasis, however, is on the experiences of the men and women who were caught up in the flow of history.
This book critically examines the influence of International Society on East Asia, and how its attempts to introduce ‘civilization’ to ‘barbarous’ polities contributed to conflict between China and Japan. Challenging existing works that have presented the expansion of (European) International Society as a progressive, linear process, this book contends that imperialism – along with an ideology premised on ‘civilising’ ‘barbarous’ peoples – played a central role in its historic development. Considering how these elements of International Society affected China and Japan’s entry into it, Shogo Suzuki contends that such states envisaged a Janus-faced International Society,...
This book asks whether a regional international society exists in East Asia and why its existence matters to both regional and global orders.