Revised and Expanded Second Edition. This lively narrative tells the story of Japan's experience with imperialism and colonialism, looking first at Japan's responses to Western threats in the nineteenth century, then at Japan's activities as Asia's only imperialist power. Using a series of human vignettes as lenses, Japan and Imperialism examines the motivations--strategic, nationalist, economic--that led to imperial expansion and the impact expansion had on both national policies and personal lives. The work demonstrates that Japanese imperial policies fit fully into the era's worldwide imperialist framework, even as they displayed certain distinctive traits. Japanese expansive actions, the booklet argues, were inspired by concrete historical contingencies rather than by some national propensity or overarching design.

Tracing the history of Japanese aggression from 1853 onward, Hoyt masterfully addresses some of the biggest questions left from the Pacific front of World War II.

Shows how Japanese anxiety about overpopulation was used to justify expansion, blurring lines between migration and settler colonialism. This title is also available as Open Access.

Employing a wide range of primary source materials, this book provides a colourful narrative of Japan's development since 1600. A variety of diary entries, letters, legal documents, and poems brings to life the early modern years, when Japan largely shut itself off from the outside world.

A rich empirical account of China's foreign economic policy towards Japan after World War Two, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified Chinese sources. Amy King offers an innovative conceptual framework for the role of ideas in shaping foreign policy, and examines how China's Communist leaders conceived of Japan after the war. The book shows how Japan became China's most important economic partner in 1971, despite the recent history of war and the ongoing Cold War divide between the two countries. It explains that China's Communist leaders saw Japan as a symbol of a modern, industrialised nation, and Japanese goods, technology and expertise as crucial in strengthening China's economy and military. For China and Japan, the years between 1949 and 1971 were not simply a moment disrupted by the Cold War, but rather an important moment of non-Western modernisation stemming from the legacy of Japanese empire, industry and war in China.

Comprehensive second editions of History for the IB Diploma Paper 1, revised for first teaching in 2015. This coursebook covers Paper 1, Prescribed Subject 3: The Move to Global War of the History for the International Baccalaureate Diploma syllabus for first assessment in 2017. Tailored to the requirements of the IB syllabus and written by experienced IB History examiners and teachers, it offers authoritative and engaging guidance through the following two case studies: Japanese expansion in East Asia (1931-1941) and German and Italian expansion (1933-1940).

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) found Japan guilty of deliberately promoting drug abuse as a weapon to further its imperialistic aims in Asia. This study provides the historical context behind the IMTFE's findings from the annexation of Taiwan in 1895 to the end of World War II. Given the extent to which drug use permeated the politics, economy, and culture of Asia, it was inevitable that Japan's rise as an imperial power would lead to contact with, and increasing involvement in, the opium and narcotics trade. This study argues that the nature of that involvement should be understood not simply in terms of a conspiracy to drug the people of Asia into submission, but rather as indicative of the general twists and turns of Japanese imperialism. Thus, opium and narcotics emerge not so much as a weapon of, but rather as a metaphor for, Japanese imperialism in Asia.

The roots of Japan's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy have often been traced to its concern over acute economic vulnerability. Michael A. Barnhart tests this assumption by examining the events leading up to World War II in the context of Japan's quest for economic security, drawing on a wide array of Japanese and American sources.Barnhart focuses on the critical years from 1938 to 1941 as he investigates the development of Japan's drive for national economic self-sufficiency and independence and the way in which this drive shaped its internal and external policies. He also explores American economic pressure on Tokyo and assesses its impact on Japan's foreign policy and domestic economy. He concludes that Japan's internal political dynamics, especially the bitter rivalry between its army and navy, played a far greater role in propelling the nation into war with the United States than did its economic condition or even pressure from Washington. Japan Prepares for Total War sheds new light on prewar Japan and confirms the opinions of those in Washington who advocated economic pressure against Japan.

Japan in World History ranges from Japan's prehistoric interactions with Korea and China, to the Western challenge of the late 1500s, the partial isolation under the Tokugawa family (1600-1868), and the tumultuous interactions of more recent times, when Japan modernized ferociously, turned imperialist, lost a world war, then became the world's second largest economy--and its greatest foreign aid donor. Writing in a lively fashion, Huffman makes rich use of primary sources, illustrating events with comments by the people who lived through them: tellers of ancient myths, court women who dominated the early literary world, cynical priests who damned medieval materialism, travelers who marveled at "indecent" Western ballroom dancers in the mid-1800s, and the emperor who justified Pearl Harbor. Without ignoring standard political and military events, the book illuminates economic, social, and cultural factors; it also examines issues of gender as well as the roles of commoners, samurai, business leaders, novelists, and priests.