Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans during World War II / Edition 1

by Takashi Fujitani

Overview

Race for Empire offers a profound and challenging reinterpretation of nationalism, racism, and wartime mobilization during the Asia-Pacific war. In parallel case studies—of Japanese Americans mobilized to serve in the United States Army and of Koreans recruited or drafted into the Japanese military—T. Fujitani examines the U.S. and Japanese empires as they struggled to manage racialized populations while waging total war. Fujitani probes governmental policies and analyzes representations of these soldiers—on film, in literature, and in archival documents—to reveal how characteristics of racism, nationalism, capitalism, gender politics, and the family changed on both sides. He demonstrates that the United States and Japan became increasingly alike over the course of the war, perhaps most tellingly in their common attempts to disavow racism even as they reproduced it in new ways and forms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520280212
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	07/20/2013
Series:	Asia Pacific Modern , #7
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	520
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

T. Fujitani is the Dr. David Chu Professor in Asia-Pacific Studies and Professor of History at the University of Toronto. He is the editor of Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) and is the author of Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (UC Press).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Note on Romanization and Naming
Commonly Used Acronyms

Introduction: Ethnic and Colonial Soldiers and the Politics of Disavowal

Part One: From Vulgar to Polite Racism
1. Right to Kill, Right to Make Live: Koreans as Japanese
2. “Very Useful and Very Dangerous”: The Global Politics of Life, Death, and Race

Part Two: Japanese as Americans
3. Subject to Choice, Labyrinth of (Un)freedom
4. Reasoning, Counterreasonings, and Counter-conduct
5. Go for Broke, the Movie: The Transwar Making of American Heroes

Part Three: Koreans as Japanese
6. National Mobilization
7. Nation, Blood, and Self-Determination
8. The Colonial and National Politics of Gender, Sex, and Family

Epilogue: “Four Volunteer Soldiers”

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Truly impressive archival work and rigorous conceptualization. . . . Provides compelling narratives and analyses of Japanese colonialism in Korea.

Cross Currents: East Asian History & Cultural Review - Henry Em

[A] monumental history. . . . This magisterial book will be indispensable reading for historians of the United States, Japan, and Korea.

Jrnl Of American History - Kornel S. Chang

[This book] is very important and should be read and studied by all serious students of Asian studies, Japanese American studies, and the Pacific War. . . . Highly recommended.

Choice

"Outstanding ... Meticulously researched and brilliantly written." 

Pacific Affairs - Daniel Lachapelle Lemire

"This is a masterful study. . . . An important and brave contribution to the fields of Japanese, Korean, Japanese American, and transnational histories."

Asian Studies Review - Emily Anderson