Studying the development, expansion, and eventual collapse of Japanese imperialism from the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 through 1945, Beasley here discusses the dynamic relationship between a successful industrial economy and the building of an empire.

An accessible, analytical survey of the rise and fall of Imperial Japan in the context of its grand strategy to transform itself into a great power.

This is a study of the origins and nature of Japanese imperialism from the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895 through to 1945. Japan is the only Asian country in modern times to have built both a successful industrial economy and an empire, and it is Professor Beasley's contention that these two phenomena are closely related. Japan's aims were influenced by its experience of western imperialism and its own growing industrialization, but as external circumstances changed and Japan's capacity grew, so did its needs and ambitions. The creation of the Japanese empire is one of the most remarkable exploits of the twentieth century. Professor Beasley has provided a much-needed scholarly investigation into its development, expansion, and eventual destruction.

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.

In Imperial Gateway, Seiji Shirane explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan's empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. Challenging understandings of empire that focus on bilateral relations between metropole and colonial periphery, Shirane uncovers a half century of dynamic relations between Japan, Taiwan, China, and Western regional powers. Japanese officials in Taiwan did not simply take orders from Tokyo; rather, they often pursued their own expansionist ambitions in South China and Southeast Asia. When outright conquest was not possible, they promoted alternative strategies, including naturalizing resident Chinese as overseas Taiwanese subjects, extending colonial police networks, and deploying tens of thousands of Taiwanese to war. The Taiwanese—merchants, gangsters, policemen, interpreters, nurses, and soldiers—seized new opportunities for socioeconomic advancement that did not always align with Japan's imperial interests. Drawing on multilingual archives in six countries, Imperial Gateway shows how Japanese officials and Taiwanese subjects transformed Taiwan into a regional gateway for expansion in an ever-shifting international order. Thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Tropics of Savagery is an incisive and provocative study of the figures and tropes of "savagery" in Japanese colonial culture. Through a rigorous analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies, and a variety of other discourses, Robert Thomas Tierney demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, he shows that the trope of the savage underwent several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period--violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographic other to be studied, happy primitive to be exoticized, and hybrid colonial subject to be assimilated.

This important book, which many will regard as controversial, argues convincingly that the Japanese imperialism of the first half of the Twentieth Century was not a temporary aberration. The author looks at the detail of the great crisis of 1873 and shows that the prospect of economic gain through overseas expansion was the central issue of that year's political struggles. He goes on to show that Japan had a long, earlier history of aiming for economic expansion overseas; and that Japan's Twentieth Century imperialism grew out of this. In addition, he argues convincingly that much of the writing about Japan has played down the true extent and nature of Japanese imperialism.

Chinese Asianism analyzes Chinese views of East Asian solidarity in light of Chinese nationalism and Sino-Japanese relations. Advocates of Asianism packaged Asia for their own agendas, often by translating and interpreting Japanese perspectives. As China now plays a central role in East Asian development, Asianism is once again of great importance.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the collapse of empires in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, analysing the ways in which European, Asian, and African empires disintegrated over the past century.

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.