World War I and the Triumph of a New Japan, 1919-1930

Description

Frederick R. Dickinson illuminates a new, integrative history of interwar Japan that highlights the transformative effects of the Great War far from the Western Front. World War I and the Triumph of a New Japan, 1919-1930 reveals how Japan embarked upon a decade of national reconstruction following the Paris Peace Conference, rivalling the monumental rebuilding efforts in post-Versailles Europe. Taking World War I as his anchor, Dickinson examines the structural foundations of a new Japan, discussing the country's wholehearted participation in new post-war projects of democracy, internationalism, disarmament and peace. Dickinson proposes that Japan's renewed drive for military expansion in the 1930s marked less a failure of Japan's interwar culture than the start of a tumultuous domestic debate over the most desirable shape of Japan's twentieth-century world. This stimulating study will engage students and researchers alike, offering a unique, global perspective of interwar Japan.

Frederick R. Dickinson is Professor of Japanese History at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Tokyo and raised in Kanazawa and Kyoto, Japan. Professor Dickinson teaches courses on modern Japan, East Asian diplomacy, and politics and nationalism in Asia.

'Dickinson provides a fresh perspective on interwar Japan. His argument is forceful, his prose fluid, and he is sure to spark a heated debate about the nature of change in early twentieth-century Japan.' Andrew Gordon, Harvard University, Massachusetts 'Instead of looking at the 1920s as a pre-stage for militarism, Dickinson suggests that the political transformation of interwar Japan was both broad and deep; that the reformist ideas inspiring these changes were widely embraced by political and social elites; and that political reform was anchored by a number of structural changes which took place after World War I. This study seamlessly integrates political and international history, bringing the insights of new trends in intellectual and cultural history to an earlier tradition of political history.' Louise Young, University of Wisconsin, Madison 'Dickinson provides us with a thought-provoking reminder not to read the past in light of what we know came next. This book, in combination with his next, will become important ... for students and specialists of interwar diplomacy, politics and culture in Japan.' Jeffrey P. Bayliss, Pacific Affairs