Given today’s heightened interest in the role and processes of propaganda in global realpolitik, the arrival of this first major collection of English-language writings on Japan and international ambitions in the modern period - a source long neglected by historians and social scientists alike - is both timely and relevant. Most books on Japan published in English between Meiji and the Pacific War can be divided between those with an explanatory purpose and those with a more critical focus. In the West, in the early years of the 20th century, explanatory books and fiction on Japan, especially those by Japanese authors, enjoyed a wide readership. A number of these explanatory volumes were propagandist in intent and by definition. However, as books about Japan with a more Western outlook came into vogue, the earlier volumes were gradually superseded by new works, written by Western writers and journalists, many of whom were subsidized by the Japanese government. In 1921, on the eve of the Washington Conference, Japan established a propaganda bureau within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and contracted with Western authors based in East Asia and elsewhere to support and contribute to her international agenda. A selection of the fruits of these and earlier endeavours has been brought together in this collection. Japanese Propaganda - Selected Readings stands as a record of Japan’s responses to international criticism and of her sustained effort to win international favour during the stormiest years of her modern history. With a foreword from Uchikawa Yoshimi, the dean of Japanese media historians, a comprehensive introduction by Series Editor, Peter O'Connor, and scholarly introductions to each volume, Japanese Propaganda - Selected Readings provides a rich resource for all students of Japan’s modern drive for international acceptance, and of her pre-war retreat into national victimhood and institutionalized mysticism.
