Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia

When Emperor Hirohito announced defeat in a radio broadcast on 15th August 1945, Japan was not merely a nation; it was a colossal empire stretching from the tip of Alaska to the fringes of Australia grown out of a colonial ideology that continued to pervade East Asian society for years after the end of the Second World War. In Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia: Repatriation, Redress and Rebuilding, Barak Kushner and Sherzod Muminov bring together an international team of leading scholars to explore the post-imperial history of the region. From international aid to postwar cinema to chemical warfare, these essays all focus on the aftermath of Japan's aggressive warfare and the new international strategies which Japan, China, Taiwan, North and South Korea utilised following the end of the war and the collapse of Japan's empire. The result is a nuanced analysis of the transformation of postwar national identities, colonial politics, and the reordering of society in East Asia. With its innovative comparative and transnational perspective, this book is essential reading for scholars of modern East Asian history, the cold war, and the history of decolonisation.

Barak Kushner is Professor of East Asian History at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is the author of Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice (2015), Slurp! A Culinary and Social History of Ramen (2012), and The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propoganda (2006). Sherzod Muminov is Lecturer in Japanese History at the University of East Anglia, UK. He is the co-editor of Japan's Empire in East Asia (co-edited with Barak Kushner, 2017).

Introduction: Overcoming Empire, Sherzod Muminov (University of East Anglia, UK) 1. Trapped between Imperial Ruins: Internment and Repatriation of the Taiwanese in Postwar Asia-Pacific, Shi-chi Mike Lan (National Chengchi University, Taiwan) 2. China's Refugees: Postwar 'Foreigners' and the Attempt at International Aid, 1945-1956, Meredith Oyen (University of Maryland, USA) 3. Early Narratives of Japan's Korean War, Samuel Perry (Brown University, USA) 4. Reconstructing Architectural Memories of the Japanese Empire in South Korea, Hyun Kyung Lee (Seoul National University, South Korea) 5. The Cinematic Reconstruction of East Asia in Postwar Japanese War Films, Dick Stegewerns (University of Oslo, Norway) 6. Anti-Imperialism as Strategy: Masking the Edges of Foreign Entanglements in Civil War-Era China, 1945-1948, Matthew D. Johnson (Taylor's University, Malaysia) 7. From the Ashes of Empire: The Reconstruction of Manchukuo's Enterprises and the Making of China's Northeastern Industrial Base, 1948-1952, Hirata Koji (University of Cambridge, UK) 8. Empires and Continuity: The Chinese Maritime Customs Service in East Asia, 1950-1955, Chihyun Chang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China) 9. Inverted Compensation: Wartime Forced Labor and Post-Imperial Reckoning, Yukiko Koga (Hunter College, USA) 10. Japan, Chemical Warfare and Okunoshima: A Postwar Overview, Arnaud Doglia (University of Geneva, Switzerland) Bibliography Index