STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES Akiko Takenaka (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) For information from the publisher, please click here. This is the first extensive English-language study of Yasukuni Shrine as a war memorial. It explores the controversial shrine’s role in waging war, promoting peace, honoring the dead, and, in particular, building Japan’s modern … [Read more...]
Casualties of History: Wounded Japanese Servicemen and the Second World War
STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES Lee K. Pennington (Cornell University Press, 2015) For information from the publisher, please click here. Thousands of wounded servicemen returned to Japan following the escalation of Japanese military aggression in China in July 1937. Tens of thousands would return home after Japan widened its war effort in 1939. In Casualties of … [Read more...]
City of Virtues: Nanjing in an Age of Utopian Visions
STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES Chuck Wooldridge. City of Virtues: Nanjing in an Age of Utopian Visions (University of Washington Press, 2015) For information from the publisher, please click here. Throughout Nanjing's history, writers have claimed that its spectacular landscape of mountains and rivers imbued the city with "royal qi," making it a place of great … [Read more...]
The International Minimum: Creativity and Contradiction in Japan’s Global Engagement, 1933-1964
STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES Jessamyn R. Abel (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) For information from the publisher, please click here. For an interview with the author, please click here. The International Minimum tells the history of internationalism in Japan from the 1930s to 1960s, shedding light on the deep connections between modes of diplomacy during … [Read more...]
Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order, 1860-1920
STUDIES OF THE WEAI BOOK SERIES Shellen Xiao Wu (Stanford University Press, 2015) For information from the publisher, please click here. For an interview with the author, please click here. From 1868–1872, German geologist Ferdinand von Richthofen went on an expedition to China. His reports on what he found there would transform Western interest in China from the … [Read more...]
