Peter Duus

"Drawing on a diverse range of new source material, this careful and informed study casts light on a wide array of topics in social, economic, and diplomatic history and contributes to a better understanding of modern Japanese imperialism."--BOOK JACKET.

The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910

The Abacus and the Sword

Cambridge University Press

Marius B. Jansen

John Whitney Hall

Delmer Myers Brown

Donald H. Shively

William H. McCullough

Kōzō Yamamura

This comprehensive work surveys the historical events and developments in Japan's polity, economy, society and culture.

The Cambridge History of Japan

This introductory text presents an extremely clear and well-written account of the political, social, and economic events from the late Tokugawa society of 1800 to the present.

Modern Japan

Kozo Yamamura

Yamamura Kozo

Survey of the historical events and developments in medieval Japan's polity, economy, society and culture.

What forces were behind Japan's emergence as the first non-Western colonial power at the turn of the twentieth century? Peter Duus brings a new perspective to Meiji expansionism in this pathbreaking study of Japan's acquisition of Korea, the largest of its colonial possessions. He shows how Japan's drive for empire was part of a larger goal to become the economic, diplomatic, and strategic equal of the Western countries who had imposed a humiliating treaty settlement on the country in the 1850s. Duus maintains that two separate but interlinked processes, one political/military and the other economic, propelled Japan's imperialism. Every attempt at increasing Japanese political influence licensed new opportunities for trade, and each new push for Japanese economic interests buttressed, and sometimes justified, further political advances. The sword was the servant of the abacus, the abacus the agent of the sword. While suggesting that Meiji imperialism shared much with the Western colonial expansion that provided both model and context, Duus also argues that it was "backward imperialism" shaped by a sense of inferiority vis-à-vis the West. Along with his detailed diplomatic and economic history, Duus offers a unique social history that illuminates the motivations and lifestyles of the overseas Japanese of the time, as well as the views that contemporary Japanese had of themselves and their fellow Asians.

Delmer M. Brown

Definitive history of Japan from prehistoric times to the end of the eighth century.

Ramon H. Myers

Mark R. Peattie

With this book the editors complete the three-volume series on modern Japanese colonialism and imperialism that began with The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945 (Princeton, 1983) and The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895-1937 (Princeton, 1989). The Japanese military takeover in Manchuria between 1931 and 1932 was a critical turning point in East Asian history. It marked the first surge of Japanese aggression beyond the boundaries of its older colonial empire and set Japan on a collision course with China and Western colonial powers from 1937 through 1945. These essays seek to illuminate some of the more significant processes and institutions during the period when the empire was at war: the creation of a Japanese-dominated East Asian economic bloc centered in northeast Asia, the mobilization of human and physical resources in the older established areas of Japanese colonial rule, and the penetration and occupation of Southeast Asia. Introduced by Peter Duus, the volume contains four sections: Japan's Wartime Empire and the Formal Colonies (Carter J. Eckert and Wan-yao Chou), Japan's Wartime Empire and Northeast Asia (Louise Young, Y. Tak Matsusaka, Ramon H. Myers, and Takafusa Nakamura), Japan's Wartime Empire and Southeast Asia (Mark R. Peattie, E. Bruce Reynolds, and Ken'ichi Goto), and Japan's Wartime Empire in Other Perspectives (George Hicks, Hideo Kobayashi, and L. H. Gann).

The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945

This book offers a systematic comparison between Japanese and Western political institutions in the premodern period. It offers a brief discussion of the meaning and significance of the term Feudalism, and it suggests ways in which the term might be used for explorations in comparative history. Because of its brevity, it can be used as one of many paper backs in the premodern Japanese history course, or as background reading for courses on modern Japanese history and modern Japanese politics. Given its comparative approach, it can also be used as supplement in Western or world civilization course.

Feudalism in Japan

This volume provides the most comprehensive treatment in Western literature of the Heian period, the Japanese imperial court's golden age.

Peter Duus

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