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Around 1930, the Japanese publishing market was restructured, and as part of this process, the colonial market emerged within the Japanese Empire. In an attempt to expand into the colonial market, publishers such as Kaizō-sha, Chūōkōron-sha, and Senki-sha competed among each other, producing ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ commodities related to socialism. This paper examines the circulation of illegal commodities such as the often-banned magazine Senki (Battle Flag), cross-reading them with internal documents from Senki-sha (Senki’s publisher) and NAPF (All-Japan Federation of Proletarian Arts), as well as with those from the Japanese Home Ministry and the Japanese Government-General in Korea. By doing so, the essay argues that the main actors of the socialist cultural movement around 1930 purposefully planned to capitalize on the ‘illegal’ nature of their commodities, while adopting a public stance of differentiation from commercial capital. Furthermore, by proposing that the publication of illegal commodities was in fact deeply imbricated with the movement of capital in the publishing market, this paper also reveals that Korean-language publications–notably, the magazine Uri tongmu (Our Comrades)–produced by socialists in the Japanese interior around 1930, ended up playing a role in undermining the reconstruction of socialism in Korea. For this reason, it is crucial to reconsider the prevailing narrative about the history of the Japanese socialist movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s, which often essentializes the connection between Japanese and Korean socialists as pure ideological solidarity, paying little attention to the complex movement of capital, legal and illegal, at work in the Japanese Empire around 1930.

The roots of Japan's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy have often been traced to its concern over acute economic vulnerability. Historian Michael Barnhart tests this assumption by examining the events leading up to World War II in the context of Japan's quest for economic security. Drawing on a wide array of Japanese and American sources, this is the first English-language book on the war's origins to be based on research in archives on both sides of the Pacific. Barnhart focuses on the critical years from 1938 to 1941 as he investigates the development of Japan's drive for national economic self-sufficiency and independence and the way in which this drive shaped its internal and external policies. He also explores American economic pressure on Tokyo and assesses its impact on Japan's foreign policy and domestic economy. He concludes that Japan's internal political dynamics, especially the bitter rivalry between its army and navy, played a far greater role in propelling the nation into war with the United States than did its economic condition or even pressure from Washington. Japan Prepares for Total War sheds new light on prewar Japan and confirms the opinions of those in Washington who advocated economic pressure against Japan. At a time of growing interest in U.S.-Japanese economic relations, this book will be stimulating and provocative reading for scholars and students of international relations and American and Asian history. The roots of Japan's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy have often been traced to its concern over acute economic vulnerability. Michael A. Barnhart tests this assumption by examining the events leading up to World War II in the context of Japan's quest for economic security, drawing on a wide array of Japanese and American sources.Barnhart focuses on the critical years from 1938 to 1941 as he investigates the development of Japan's drive for national economic self-sufficiency and independence and the way in which this drive shaped its internal and external policies. He also explores American economic pressure on Tokyo and assesses its impact on Japan's foreign policy and domestic economy. He concludes that Japan's internal political dynamics, especially the bitter rivalry between its army and navy, played a far greater role in propelling the nation into war with the United States than did its economic condition or even pressure from Washington. Japan Prepares for Total War sheds new light on prewar Japan and confirms the opinions of those in Washington who advocated economic pressure against Japan.

This article examines how Imperial Japanese military doctors—both Army and Navy medical specialists—employed blood-type analysis in military medicine, from the first military medical publication of blood-type research in 1926 to the end of the Asia-Pacific War in 1945. It explores the military physicians’ quest to investigate the relevance of blood-group knowledge and their attempt to integrate ideas derived from Furukawa Takeji’s Blood Type–Temperament Correlation Theory—the idea that blood type is linked to personality traits—into the operations of the armed forces, a process I term ‘sero-rationalization’. By the mid-1930s, however, escalating conflicts prompted a shift in research priorities. Military physicians increasingly focused on serology and the technological advancements required for blood transfusions, moving away from earlier biopsychological discussions of blood types. This shift reflected an urgent need to address wartime medical challenges, including treating injuries and developing reliable transfusion methods. With the intensification of war by the 1940s, frontline physicians began exploring alternatives to traditional blood typing, such as cross-type transfusions and even animal-to-human transfusions. In their attempts to circumvent the ABO blood-group system in dealing with wartime medical emergencies, military physicians departed significantly from their initial emphasis on serological differentiation. Ironically, the pursuit of sero-rationalization—intended to optimize military efficiency—ultimately proved counterproductive.

The establishment of the United Church of Christ in Japan (nihon kirisuto kyōdan 日本基督教団) marked the culmination of the Church Union Movement in Imperial Japan. Although the Church Union Movement can be traced back to the Meiji era, no significant breakthroughs were made until 1939 due to the refusal of some denominations. In this article, I aim to clarify the process and causes behind the formation of the united church, while also attempting to understand the interaction pattern between the State and Christianity under an increasing wartime totalitarian regime. In April 1939, the Diet passed the Religious Organizations Law (syūkyō dantai hō 宗教団体法), a bill aimed at strengthening state control over religions, which required Christian denominations to establish religious organizations. With the war intensifying Japan’s antagonism toward Western countries, Christianity as a foreign religion faced progressive attacks from the nationalist sects. Some denominations, like the Salvation Army, were accused of espionage due to their international connections and were monitored by gendarmerie (kenpeitai 憲兵隊). Facing harsh pressure, Christians sought to project a patriotic image, ultimately leading to the formation of the United Church as a survival strategy amidst a hostile social-political environment.

PurposeThis article assesses the development of flood relief and recovery, and their narratives, as political sites for the central and local governments to negotiate each other's standing and role in imperial Japan.Design/methodology/approachThe article examines local flood narratives, most prominently from Okayama, to assess how imperial Japan's central government intruded into the periphery through disaster relief, and how the localities negotiated and challenged Tokyo's political agenda on the ground and through these narratives.FindingsThe above sources reveal that the national government attempted to use flood experiences to unite the pluralizing society by three main means: building meteorological stations, relief laws, and through the imperial being. The process was systematized gradually, and local prefectures aided and challenged Tokyo's attempts. The prefectures also used disasters to try to bring unity within their community.Originality/valueHistorical flood narratives are often used to mine data from which future preventative and management measures are constructed. The article suggests the narratives' political nature, and hence the nuances that must be considered in these efforts.

Studies of the relations between the Tripartite powers have primarily been concentrated on the relations of Nazi Germany with Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. This article, based on original documents from the Italian archives, offers an original insight on the Italian perspective about the naval relations between Italy and Japan before and during the early years of the Second World War. It analyses the strategic motivation that led Fascist Italy to seek naval cooperation with Japan and how their relationship evolved during the period between the Ethiopian War (1935–6) to the end of the Axis campaign in North Africa in 1943.

Nazi Germany’s place in the wider world is a controversial topic in historiography. While scholars such as Ian Kershaw argue that Hitler’s dictatorship must be understood as a unique national phenomenon, others analyse Nazism within comparative frameworks. Mark Mazower, for example, argues that the international concept of ‘empire’ is useful for comprehending the German occupation of Europe. Using an approach native to transnational cultural studies, my contribution goes a step further: I analyse how the Nazis themselves positioned their regime in a wider international context, and thus gave meaning to it. My main thesis is that, while the Nazis took a broad look at international colonialism, they differentiated considerably between the various national experiences. French and British empire-building, for instance, did not receive the same attention as Japanese and Italian colonial projects. Based on new archival evidence, I show that the act of referring in particular to the Italian example was crucial for the Nazis. On the one hand, drawing strong parallels between Italian colonialism and the German rule of eastern Europe allowed Hitler to recruit support for his own visions of imperial conquest. On the other hand, Italian colonialism served as a blueprint for the Nazis’ plans for racial segregation. The article thus shows the importance of transnational exchange for understanding ideological dynamics within the Nazi regime.

This book, the first full account of Japan’s financial history and the Japanese gold standard in the pivotal years before World War II, provides a new perspective on the global political dynamics of the era by placing Japan, rather than Europe, at the center of the story. Focusing on the fall of liberalism in Japan in late 1931 and the global politics of money that were at the center of the crisis, Mark Metzler asks why successive Japanese governments from 1920 to 1931 carried out policies that deliberately induced deflation and depression. His search for answers stretches from Edo to London to the ragged borderlands of the Japanese empire and from the eighteenth century to the 1950s, integrating political and monetary analysis to shed light on the complex dynamics of money, empire, and global hegemony. His detailed and broad ranging account illuminates a range of issues including Japan’s involvement in the economic dynamics that shook interwar Europe, the character of U.S. isolationism, and the rise of fascism as an international phenomenon.

From the 1920s to the early 1940s, Japanese department stores provided Japanese urban middle-class households with art and artifacts from China, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The department stores not merely sold art and artifacts from Japan's Asian neighbors but also promoted the cultural confidence to appreciate and collect them. At the same time, aspiring middle-class customers satisfied their desire to emulate the historical elite's taste for Chinese and other Asian objects by shopping at the department stores. The aesthetic consumption of Asian art and artifacts formulated a privileged position for Japan in the imperial order and presented the new middle class with the cultural capital vital to the negotiation of its social status. This article examines the ways in which department stores marketed “tōyō shumi” (Oriental taste), which played a significant role in the formation of identity for both the imperial state and the new middle class in 1920s and 1930s Japan.

Imperial Japanese scholars investigated Buddhist art in Korea prior to their country’s annexation of Korea, and shortly after that annexation they commenced their restoration work on those investigated cultural artifacts. This paper aims to review the changes in the context of restored Korean Buddhist art through an examination of period photographs. Japanese publishers made frequent use of photographs of Korean cultural properties taken before and after their restoration. Through these modern Japanese publishing and education efforts, Koreans came to perceive their Buddhist cultural properties as objects belonging to the past to be preserved and protected. Korea’s Buddhist cultural properties, which had once been pivots of ardent prayers, changed into objects of aesthetic and intellectual appreciation. As a result, Koreans of the period came to consider the objects of Korea’s Buddhist material heritage as the subjects of “sightseeing” or questions of “educational refinement” rather than of religious faith.