Legacies of the Asia-Pacific War

2012-09-10
 |  History
Legacies of the Asia-Pacific War

Author: Roman Rosenbaum

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781136936210

Category: History

Page: 272

View: 203

Get eBOOK →
When we look in detail at the various peripheral groups of disenfranchised people emerging from the aftermath of the Asia–Pacific War the list is startling: Koreans in Japan (migrants or forced labourers), Burakumin, Hibakusha, Okinawans, Asian minorities, comfort women and many others. Many of these groups have been discussed in a large corpus of what we may call ‘disenfranchised literature’, and the research presented in this book intends to add an additional and particularly controversial example to the long list of the voice- and powerless. The presence of members of what is known as the yakeato sedai or the generation of people who experienced the fire-bombings of the Asia–Pacific War is conspicuous in all areas of contemporary Japan. From literature to the visual arts, from music to theatre, from architecture to politics, their influence and in many cases guiding principles is evident everywhere and in many cases forms the keystone of modern Japanese society and culture. The contributors to this book explore the impact of the yakeato generation - and their literary, creative and cultural and works - on the postwar period by drawing out the importance of the legacy of those people who truly survived the darkest hour of the twentieth century and re-evaluate the ramifications of their experiences in contemporary Japanese society and culture. As such this book will be of huge interest to those studying Japanese history, literature, poetry and cultural studies.

The San Francisco System and Its Legacies

2014-11-20
 |  History
The San Francisco System and Its Legacies

Author: Kimie Hara

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317637899

Category: History

Page: 290

View: 120

Get eBOOK →
In September 1951, Japan signed a peace treaty with forty-eight countries in San Francisco; in April 1952, the treaty came into effect. The San Francisco Peace Treaty is an international agreement that in significant ways shaped the post–World War II international order in the Asia-Pacific. With its associated security arrangements, it laid the foundation for the regional structure of Cold War confrontation: the "San Francisco System" fully reflected the strategic interests and policy priorities of the peace conference’s host nation, the United States. The treaty fell far short of settling outstanding issues in the wake of the Pacific War or facilitating a clean start for the "post-war" period. Rather, critical aspects of the settlement were left equivocal, and continue to have significant and worrisome implications for regional international relations. This book examines the key developments of the contentious political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific that share a common foundation in the post-war disposition of Japan, particularly the San Francisco Peace Treaty. These include both tangible and intangible issues, such as disputes over territories and "history" problems. Taking the San Francisco System as its conceptual grounding, the authors examine how these issues developed and have remained contentious long after the San Francisco arrangements. To provide bases for producing solutions, the chapters offer comprehensive accounts that explain and deepen our understanding of these complex regional issues and the San Francisco System as a whole. By closely and systematically examining the legacy and various ramifications of the San Francisco System, this fascinating book adds to our understanding of current and growing tensions in the region. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, history, international relations and politics.

The Pacific War

2014-09-15
 |  History
The Pacific War

Author: Christina Twomey

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317807896

Category: History

Page: 300

View: 118

Get eBOOK →
The Pacific War is an umbrella term that refers collectively to a disparate set of wars, however, this book presents a strong case for considering this assemblage of conflicts as a collective, singular war. It highlights the genuine thematic commonalities in the legacies of war that cohere across the Asia-Pacific and shows how the wars, both individually and collectively, wrought dramatic change to the geo-political makeup of the region. This book discusses the cultural, political and social implications of the Pacific War and engages with debates over the war’s impact, legacies, and continuing cultural resonances. Crucially, it examines the meanings and significance of the Second World War from a truly international perspective and the contributors present fascinating case studies that highlight the myriad of localised idiosyncrasies in how the Pacific War has been remembered and deployed in political contexts. The chapters trace the shared legacy that the individual wars had on demographics, culture and mobility across the Asia Pacific, and demonstrate how in the aftermath of the war political borders were transformed and new nation states emerged. The book also considers racial and sexual tensions which accompanied the arrival of both Allied and Axis personnel and their long lasting consequences, as well as the impact returning veterans and the war crime trials that followed the conflict had on societies in the region. In doing so, it succeeds in illuminating the events and issues that unfolded in the weeks, months, and indeed decades after the war. This interdisciplinary volume examines the aftermaths and legacies of war for individuals, communities, and institutions across South, Southeast, and East Asia, Oceania, and the Pacific world. As such, it will be welcomed by students and scholars of Asian history, modern history and cultural history, as well as by those interested in issues of memory and commemoration.

Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation

2018-05-15
 |  History
Civil Society and Postwar Pacific Basin Reconciliation

Author: Yasuko Claremont

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781351679473

Category: History

Page: 230

View: 837

Get eBOOK →
This book brings together discussions of leading aspects and repercussions of the Asia-Pacific War, which still have huge relevance today. From the development of war guilt to the vivid effect of art on bringing alive the realities of the war, it analyses a diversity of post-war issues in the Pacific Basin. Organised into five parts, the book begins by scrutinizing the conflicting attitudes towards Japanese post-war society and identifies the various legacies of the war. It also provides an examination of the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagaski, before studying contemporary civil society and analysing the way memories of the war have changed with time. Each of the chapters discusses the Japanese government’s inability to achieve reconciliation with its neighbours, despite the passage of over 70 years, and the denial of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army. Arguing that this policy of continuous denial has triggered the rise of civil movements in Japan, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese History and Japanese Studies in general.

Okinawan War Memory

2014-03-14
 |  History
Okinawan War Memory

Author: Kyle Ikeda

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781135011802

Category: History

Page: 176

View: 115

Get eBOOK →
As one of Okinawa's most insightful writers and social critics, Medoruma Shun has highlighted the problems and limits of conventional representation of the Battle of Okinawa, raised new questions and concerns about the nature of Okinawan war memory, and expanded the possibilities of representing war through his groundbreaking and prize-winning fiction, editorials, essays, and speaking engagements. Yet, his writing has not been analyzed in regard to how his experience and identity as the child of two survivors of the Battle of Okinawa have powerfully shaped his understanding of the war and his literary craft. This book examines Okinawan war memory through the lens of Medoruma’s war fiction, and pays particular attention to the issues of second-generation war survivorship and transgenerational trauma. It explores how his texts contribute to knowledge about the war and its ongoing effects — on survivors, their offspring, and the larger community — in different ways from that of other modes of representation, such as survivor testimony, historical narrative, and realistic fiction. These dominant means of memory making have played a major role in shaping the various discourses about the war and the Battle of Okinawa, yet these forms of public memory and knowledge often exclude or avoid more personal, emotional, and traumatic experiences. Indeed, Ikeda’s analysis sheds light on the nature of trauma on survivors and their children who continue to inhabit sites of the traumatic past, and in turn makes an important contribution to studies on trauma and second-generation survivor experiences. This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Asian literature, Japanese literature, Japanese history, war memory and Okinawa.

Tokyo

2017-10-17
 |  History
Tokyo

Author: Barbara E. Thornbury

Publisher: Lexington Books

ISBN: 9781498523684

Category: History

Page: 213

View: 226

Get eBOOK →
Tokyo: Memory, Imagination, and the City is a collection of eight essays that explore Tokyo urban space from the perspective of memory in works of the imagination—novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and films. Written by scholars of Japanese studies based in England, Germany, Japan, and the United States, the book focuses on texts produced in Japan since the 1980s. The closing years of the Shōwa period (1926-1989) were a watershed decade of spatial transformation in Tokyo. It was also a time (in Japan, as elsewhere) when conversations about the nature of memory—historical, cultural, collective, and individual—intensified. The contributors to the volume share the view that works of the imagination are constitutive elements of how cities are experienced and perceived. Each of the essays responds to the growing interest in studies on Tokyo with a literary-cultural orientation.

The Pacific War and Its Political Legacies

2009
 |  History
The Pacific War and Its Political Legacies

Author: Denny Roy

Publisher: Praeger Pub Text

ISBN: STANFORD:36105132216594

Category: History

Page: 284

View: 462

Get eBOOK →
Roy applies the touchstone of historical truth to competing nationalist myths of the Pacific War, which continue to inflame the international politics of Northeast Asia and the United States.

Bodies of Memory

2012-01-09
 |  History
Bodies of Memory

Author: Yoshikuni Igarashi

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9781400842988

Category: History

Page: 304

View: 697

Get eBOOK →
Japan and the United States became close political allies so quickly after the end of World War II, that it seemed as though the two countries had easily forgotten the war they had fought. Here Yoshikuni Igarashi offers a provocative look at how Japanese postwar society struggled to understand its war loss and the resulting national trauma, even as forces within the society sought to suppress these memories. Igarashi argues that Japan's nationhood survived the war's destruction in part through a popular culture that expressed memories of loss and devastation more readily than political discourse ever could. He shows how the desire to represent the past motivated Japan's cultural productions in the first twenty-five years of the postwar period. Japanese war experiences were often described through narrative devices that downplayed the war's disruptive effects on Japan's history. Rather than treat these narratives as obstacles to historical inquiry, Igarashi reads them along with counter-narratives that attempted to register the original impact of the war. He traces the tensions between remembering and forgetting by focusing on the body as the central site for Japan's production of the past. This approach leads to fascinating discussions of such diverse topics as the use of the atomic bomb, hygiene policies under the U.S. occupation, the monstrous body of Godzilla, the first Western professional wrestling matches in Japan, the transformation of Tokyo and the athletic body for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and the writer Yukio Mishima's dramatic suicide, while providing a fresh critical perspective on the war legacy of Japan.

The Ambiguous Legacy

1999-11-13
 |  History
The Ambiguous Legacy

Author: Michael Hogan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521779774

Category: History

Page: 554

View: 511

Get eBOOK →
This collection assesses the record of American foreign policy in the twentieth century.

The Legacy of Supranationalism

2000-08-22
 |  Social Science
The Legacy of Supranationalism

Author: P. Close

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9780230509061

Category: Social Science

Page: 260

View: 121

Get eBOOK →
The doctrine of supranationalism has been most evident in Europe, but has become increasingly a global tour de force . Supranationalism is the ideological driving force behind the process of European integration and so the European Union, the first supranational regional regime (SRR). But the same doctrine has bequeathed other gifts to the world and to posterity. The EU is evolving as a prominent global player, and as a result appears to have become an inspiration and model for the proliferation of other SRRs and proto-SRRs. However, as SRRs acquire greater power relative to 'traditional' global players such as nation-states, a further state of development has ensued, entailing the creation of supranational global regimes (SGRs), signalled by the progress of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation.