Books in the Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia series

This book presents an analysis of how political parties operated in Japan over the first four decades following the Second World War. It extends quite widely to discussion of the political system, the social and economic environment in which parties operated, internal party matters, especially factions, personal support groups, special interest groups, and the role of government bureaucracy. Overall, the book shows how precedents for the political system and for policy making were set in this important period, precedents which continue, and which have contributed significantly to the present conservative stance on many key issues.

This book presents extensive new research findings on and new thinking about Southeast Asia in this interesting, richly diverse, but much understudied period. It examines the wide and well-developed trading networks, explores the different kinds of regimes, considers urban growth, international relations and the beginnings of European involvement, and discusses religious factors. One key theme of the book is the consideration of how well-developed Southeast Asia was before the onset of European involvement, and, how, during the peak of the commercial boom in the 1500s and 1600s, many polities in Southeast Asia were not far behind Europe in terms of socio-economic progress and attainments.

This book presents a wide range of new research on the Chinese treaty ports ΓÇô the key strategic places on ChinaΓÇÖs coast where in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries various foreign powers controlled, through "unequal treaties", whole cities or parts of cities, outside the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities. Topics covered include land and how it was acquired, the flow of people, good and information, specific individuals and families who typify life in the treaty ports, and technical advances, exploration, and innovation in government.

The decline of British power in Asia, from a high point in 1905, when BritainΓÇÖs ally Japan vanquished the Russian Empire, apparently reducing the perceived threat that Russia posed to its influence in India and China, to the end of the twentieth century, when British power had dwindled to virtually nothing, is one of the most important themes in understanding the modern history of East and Southeast Asia. This book considers a range of issues that illustrate the significance and influence of the British Empire in Asia and the nature of BritainΓÇÖs imperial decline. Subjects covered include the challenges posed by Germany and Japan during the First World War, British efforts at international co-operation in the interwar period, the British relationship with Korea and Japan in the wake of the Second World War, and the complicated path of decolonisation in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Using a unique "old¿new" treatment, this book presents new perspectives on several important topics in Southeast Asian history and historiography. Based on original, primary research, it reinterprets and revises several long-held conventional views in the field, covering the period from the "classical" age to the twentieth century. Chapters share the approach to Southeast Asian history and historiography: namely, giving "agency" to Southeast Asia in all research, analysis, writing, and interpretation.

This book discusses the cultural, political and social implications of the Pacific War and engages with debates over the war¿s impact, legacies, and continuing cultural resonances. Crucially, it examines the meanings and significance of the Second World War from a truly international perspective and the contributors present fascinating case studies that highlight the myriad of localised idiosyncrasies in how the Pacific War has been remembered and deployed in political contexts.

With a focus on cross-border dialogue, Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border reveals the lives of the ordinary people in the border regions between Russia and Japan, and how they and their communities have been affected by shifts in the Russo-Japanese border over the past century and a half. Examining the lives and experiences of repatriates from Karafuto/Sakhalin in contemporary Hokkaido and their contribution to the multicultural society of Japan¿s northernmost island, the chapters cover the border shifts in Karafuto/Sakhalin up until 1945; the immediate aftermath of World War II; the commemorative practices and memories of those in both Japan and Eastern Russia; and finally, postwar lives.

Using Japanese language sources presented for the first time in English and a number of local history case studies, this book offers a fascinating and little-known perspective on WWII. It combines a comprehensive theory of how war memories operate at the local level, explaining Hokkaido's pivotal role in Japanese imperial history.

This book explores the ways in which scientists, engineers and physicians worked directly and indirectly to support the creation of a new Japanese empire, focussing on the eve of World War I and linking their efforts to later post-war developments. The contributors push the field of the history of science, technology and medicine in Japan in new directions, raising questions about the definitions of diseases, the false starts in advancing knowledge, and highlighting the very human nature of fields which, on the surface, seem to non-specialists to be highly rational.

This book presents a range of new research on British-Chinese relations in the period from BritainΓÇÖs first imperial intervention in China up to the 1960s. Topics covered include economic issues such as fi nance, investment and Chinese labour in British territories, questions of perceptions on both sides, such as British worries about, and exaggeration of, the ΓÇÿChina threatΓÇÖ, including to India, and British aggression towards, and eventual withdrawal from, China.

The decline of British power in Asia, from a high point in 1905, when BritainΓÇÖs ally Japan vanquished the Russian Empire, apparently reducing the perceived threat that Russia posed to its influence in India and China, to the end of the twentieth century, when British power had dwindled to virtually nothing, is one of the most important themes in understanding the modern history of East and Southeast Asia. This book considers a range of issues that illustrate the significance and influence of the British Empire in Asia and the nature of BritainΓÇÖs imperial decline. Subjects covered include the challenges posed by Germany and Japan during the First World War, British efforts at international co-operation in the interwar period, the British relationship with Korea and Japan in the wake of the Second World War, and the complicated path of decolonisation in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Besides looking at major outbreaks of diseases and how they were coped with, diseases such as malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, venereal disease, avian flu and SARS, this book also examines how the successive government regimes in Hong Kong took action to prevent diseases and control potential threats to health. It shows how policies impacted the various Chinese and non-Chinese groups, and how policies were often formulated as a result of negotiations between these different groups. By considering developments over a long historical period, the book contrasts the different approaches in the periods of colonial rule, Japanese occupation, post-war reconstruction, transition to decolonization, and Hong Kong as Special Administrative Region within the PeopleΓÇÖs Republic of China.

This book presents an analysis of how political parties operated in Japan over the first four decades following the Second World War. It extends quite widely to discussion of the political system, the social and economic environment in which parties operated, internal party matters, especially factions, personal support groups, special interest groups, and the role of government bureaucracy. Overall, the book shows how precedents for the political system and for policy making were set in this important period, precedents which continue, and which have contributed significantly to the present conservative stance on many key issues.

This book presents extensive new research findings on and new thinking about Southeast Asia in this interesting, richly diverse, but much understudied period. It examines the wide and well-developed trading networks, explores the different kinds of regimes, considers urban growth, international relations and the beginnings of European involvement, and discusses religious factors. One key theme of the book is the consideration of how well-developed Southeast Asia was before the onset of European involvement, and, how, during the peak of the commercial boom in the 1500s and 1600s, many polities in Southeast Asia were not far behind Europe in terms of socio-economic progress and attainments.

This book puts the Non-Aligned Movement into its wider historical context and sheds light on the long-term connections and entanglements of the Afro-Asian world. This volume looks back to the ideological beginnings of the concept of peaceful coexistence at the time of the anticolonial movements, and at the multi-faceted challenges of foreign policy the former freedom fighters faced when they established their own decolonized states. It analyses the crucial role Yugoslav president Tito played in his determination to keep his country out of the blocs, and finally examines the main achievement of the Non-Aligned Movement: to give subordinate states of formerly subaltern peoples a voice in the international system.