Contesting Memorial Spaces of Japan's Empire - (Soas Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan) by Edward Boyle & Steven Ivings (Hardcover)

About the Book

An interdisciplinary study of the complex histories and contested legacies of heritage sites associated with Japan's empire in Asia and the Pacific.

Book Synopsis

Ongoing arguments over how histories are honoured - as evidenced by the conflict between South Korea and Japan over the opening of Tokyo's Heritage Information Centre in June 2020 - reveal the extent to which heritage processes enable states to assert legitimacy and power on a global stage. Here, Contesting Memorial Spaces of Japan's Empire shines a timely spotlight on the complicated histories and disputed legacies of various sites associated with Japan's empire in Asia and the Pacific.

Bringing together a team of international scholars, this transnational study sees contested memorial spaces as windows for us to explore how borders are created, moved and altered in everyday life. From the Asan Bay Overlook Memorial Wall in Guam and the Puppet Emperor Palace in China to Japan's Ainu Museum and the Cowra War Cemetery in Australia, the diverse range of case studies examined here foreground the complex relationship Japan and its neighbours have with their imperial past and reveal how these relations stand at the intersection of individual actions, societal choices and memory collectives. In doing so, this innovative collection of essays bridges history, geography and heritage studies to provide an invaluable new approach to the study of imperial conflict and memory politics in modern Japan.

Review Quotes

This edited volume offers insightful and thought-provoking analysis of Japan's imperial legacies and their entanglement with global histories of memory. The various essays provide a compelling examination of the working of war memory, both within and between sites, making it an invaluable resource for scholars of the topic.
Ran Zwigenberg, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, History, and Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA

About the Author

Edward Boyle is Associate Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyoto, Japan, and editor of Japan Review.

Steven Ivings is Associate Professor of Economics at Kyoto University, Japan. He is the co-editor of Global Diasporas in the Age of High Imperialism (2017, with Ulrike Kirchberger).