Tumultuous Decade: Empire, Society, and Diplomacy in 1930s Japan (Japan and Global Society) - Softcover

Kimura, Masato; Minohara, Tosh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442612347 ISBN 13: 9781442612341

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2013

Synopsis

The 1930s was a dark period in international affairs. The Great Depression affected the economic and social circumstances of the world’s major powers, contributing to armed conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. This volume focuses exclusively on Japan, which witnessed a flurry of progressive activities in this period, activities which served both domestic and international society during the “tumultuous decade.”

Featuring an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars, Tumultuous Decade examines Japanese domestic and foreign affairs between 1931 and 1941. It looks at Japan in the context of changing approaches to global governance, the rise of the League of Nations, and attempts to understand the Japanese worldview as it stood in the 1930s, a crucial period for Japan and the wider world. The editors argue that, like many other emerging powers at the time, Japan experienced a national identity crisis during this period and that this crisis is what ultimately precipitated Japan’s role in the Second World War as well as the global order that took shape in its aftermath.

About this title

About the Author

Masato Kimura is director of the Shibusawa Eiichi

Memorial Foundation.
Tosh Minohara is a professor in the Graduate School of Law at Kobe

University.

Review

“From the launch of the Japan Foundation to social welfare in colonial Taiwan to diplomatic miscommunication on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Tumultuous Decade offers a captivating glimpse of a wide range of Japanese international activity in a dramatic age.  This outstanding collection of essays demonstrates the vitality of a new generation of scholarship on Japanese international history.” (Frederick R. Dickinson, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1442612347
• ISBN 13: 9781442612341
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 328