Settler Life in Imperial Japan’s Colonies
Imperial Japan’s vast Asian empire became home to more than a million female settlers. Their voices are now being heard.
Japan
Portrait of the Author as a Historian: Yukio Mishima
Angered by his native country’s rush towards western-style modernisation, the acclaimed Japanese author committed a shocking act of protest.
Japan’s Charles Dickens
The visit of Natsume Sōseki to London at the turn of the 20th century suggested ways of successfully combining western industrialism with ‘Japanese Spirit’.
The Sinking of Japan
An island nation with few resources, Japan was in a precarious enough position when it declared war on the United States in December 1941. That its powerful navy failed to learn the lessons of previous conflicts made matters even worse.
The Map: From the East, From the West, 1942
A Japanese map produced during the Second World War encouraged children to follow the Empire's military effort, explains Kate Wiles.
Young Guns: Terrorism in Japan
Tim Stanley describes the Asama-Sansō Incident of 1972 and reveals the cyclical nature of political violence and the means of its defeat.
Sakoku, or the Closed Country: 1640-1854
C.R. Boxer offers a study of Japanese isolationism between the mid-seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth century.
Fascism in Japan: The Army Mutiny of February 1936
Richard Storry describes how the Army Mutiny of February 1936 was the climax of revolutionary nationalism in Japan. Its outcome meant action against China, and in the end led to Pearl Harbour
What were the wartime Japanese thinking?
According to western stereotype, the Japanese at the time of the Second World War were passive and obedient automatons. Yet the realities of daily life in imperial Japan were complex and politically charged.
Victory in Arakan
Geoffrey Evans describes how British and Indian forces recovered Burma from the Japanese during the Second World War.