Supplement To The Manchurian Question

In the 1930s and '40s, Japanese rulers in Manchukuo enlisted writers and artists to promote imperial Japan's modernization program. Ironically, the cultural producers chosen to spread the imperialist message were previously left-wing politically. In Glorify the Empire, Annika A. Culver explores how these once anti-imperialist intellectuals produced avant-garde works celebrating the modernity of a fascist state and reflecting a complicated picture of complicity with, and ambivalence toward, Japan's utopian project. A groundbreaking work, this book magnifies the intersection between politics and art in a rarely examined period of Japanese history.

The author had access to many Japanese texts and private documents dealing with undercurrents of diplomacy and with constitutional history; he also had the advantage of knowing the Japanese attitude towards life and politics, the terrific force of Japan’s traditions as they are brought to bear on international relations, while at the same time possessing the necessary perspective provided by occidental training in analysis and criticism. The result is a revealing and careful exposition of the structure and psychology of the Japanese government, from the Emperor down, and the only history of Japanese diplomacy as a cause of war that has ever been written.