In response to the leaders of China and Japan attacking each other for the way they deal with history, scholars from Japan, China, and the West held a conference in 2002, under the auspices of the Harvard Asia Center, to examine the Japanese invasion and occupation of China. The essays collected in this timely volume are the product of these scholars’ research on this historical problem. Delving deeply into the nature of the occupation, the authors examine local variations in the role of the Japanese in local politics, economics, and society, in such diverse localities as Manchuria, Mongolia, Shanghai, Jiangxi, and Yunnan, where the wartime experience has been little studied.

Contributors include: Timothy Brook, John Dower, Kubo Toru, Chang Jui-te, Shao Minghuang, Tsukase Susumu, Xie Xueshi, Lu Minghui, Odoric Y. K. Wou, Ju Zhifen, Zhuang Jianping, Wei Hongyun, Frederic Wakeman, Jr., and Peter Merker.