In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation

Description

The authors of this 2004 volume consult Chinese and Western archival materials to examine the Chinese War of Resistance against the Japanese in the Shanghai area. They argue that the war in China was a nationalistic endeavour carried out without an effective national leadership. Wartime Chinese activities in Shanghai drew upon social networks rather than ideological positions and these activities cut across lines of military and political divisions. Instead of the stark contrast between heroic resistance and shameful collaboration, wartime experience in the city is more aptly summed up in terms of bloody struggles between those committed to normalcy in everyday life and those determined to bring about its disruption through terrorist violence and economic control. The volume offers an evaluation of the strategic significance of the Shanghai economy in the Pacific War. It also draws attention to the feminisation of urban public discourse against the backdrop of intensified violence. The essays capture the last moments of European settlements in Shanghai under Japanese occupation.

"Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh ask what the war years 1937-1945 meant to the civilian population of the great metropolis. They ask how the brutality of siege and occupation changed 'civic patterns of authority and association' and how they reconfigured 'the material landscape of the city?' To the credit of editors and essayists alike, this sweeping study of Shanghai under Japanese occupation answers those questions and many others and illuminates our understanding of wartime struggle and survival in China's most modern and international city." "The clear contribution of this volume is its success in providing a more diverse perspective of the Sino-Japanese War." The Journal of Asian Studies Larry Shyu, University of New Brunswick "Generally speaking, the fourteen essays that comprise this collection probe the grey areas that characterized life in Shanghai during the occupation, and grey areas there surely were-between, for example, collaboration and resistance, or hero and traitor.... Most people inhabited the space between extremes, and it is here, in the realm of the ordinary, that these essays make their mark. Well-researched, cogently presented, and generally quite readable, they add texture and depth to our understanding of the ways by which Chinese living in their nation's most important metropolitan center dealt with the dislocations imposed by the war and occupation.... This collection is a most welcome addition to the field." - Journal of Asian History