First published in 2001. This is Volume X of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the United States. From 1776 to 1914. It includes sections demonstrating the U.S. journey from Internationalistic Nationalism to Nationalistic Internationalism.

Professor Iriye analyses the origins of the 1941 conflict against the background of international relations in the preceding decade in order to answer the key question: Why did Japan decide to go to war against so formidable a combination of powers?

Akira Iriye assesses Japan's international relations, from a Japanese perspective, in the century and a half since she ended her self-imposed isolation and resumed her place in the international community. The book is the author's own adaptation of two highly successful short studies, up to and after 1945, that he wrote for Japan. It ends with a consideration of Japan's international relations since the end of the Cold War, and her place in the world today. This is history written from within - and there could be no better interpreter of Japan to the West than this most distinguished of historians, who, himself Japanese, has long lived and taught in the United States.

Professor Iriye analyses the origins of the 1941 conflict against the background of international relations in the preceding decade in order to answer the key question: Why did Japan, which had not been able to defeat the isolated and divided forces of China, decide to go to war against so formidable a combination of powers?

First published in 2001. This is Volume X of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the United States. From 1776 to 1914. It includes sections demonstrating the U.S. journey from Internationalistic Nationalism to Nationalistic Internationalism.

Global history is a fast growing area of historical study. With the acceleration of the age of globalization in the twentieth century, we have been able to view the world across national boundaries. From the speed of electronic communications and the coverage of global news to the proliferation of 'ethnic' restaurants, globalization is situated directly in our everyday lives, and affects our perceptions of world events. It also has a major impact on how we should study the history of the world, and this reader shows how that can be put into practice.
Drawing together a wide international range of contributors, this ground-breaking work presents an important collection of essays to set globalization in its historical context. Thematic in focus, these essays also draw on perspectives from other disciplines, such as anthropology and development studies. The reader uses global history to view the history of the world through key themes that transcend national boundaries, such as terrorism, the environment, human rights, the information revolution and multinational corporations.
"The Global History" "Reader" is essential reading for all students with an interest in learning more about this definitive new area of historical study.

This groundbreaking work brings together an important collection of essays from an international range of contributors to set globalization in its historical context.

Through these thematically focused essays, the history of the world is examined in key themes that transcend national boundaries such as terrorism, the environment, human rights, the information revolution and multinational corporations.

This is a fast-growing and definitive new area of historical study, and this book is essential reading for all students with an interest in learning more.

Akira Iriye assesses Japan's international relations, from a Japanese perspective, in the century and a half since she ended her self-imposed isolation and resumed her place in the international community. The book is the author's own adaptation of two highly successful short studies, up to and after 1945, that he wrote for Japan. It ends with a consideration of Japan's international relations since the end of the Cold War, and her place in the world today. This is history written from within - and there could be no better interpreter of Japan to the West than this most distinguished of historians, who, himself Japanese, has long lived and taught in the United States.

Between 1350 and 1750-a time of empires, exploration, and exposure to radically different lands and cultures-the world reached a tipping point of global connectedness. In this volume of the acclaimed series A History of the World, noted international scholars examine five critical geographical areas during this pivotal period: Eurasia between Russia and Japan; the Muslim world of the Ottoman and Persian empires; Mughal India and the Indian Ocean trading world; maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania; and a newly configured transatlantic rim. While people in many places remained unaware of anything beyond their own village, an intense period of empire building led to expanding political, economic, and cultural interaction on every continent-early signals of a shrinking globe. By the early fourteenth century Eurasia's Mongol empires were disintegrating. Concurrently, followers of both Islam and Christianity increased exponentially, with Islam exerting a powerful cultural influence in the spreading Ottoman and Safavid empires. India came under Mughal rule, experiencing a significant growth in trade along the Indian Ocean and East African coastlines. In Southeast Asia, Muslims engaged in expansion on the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines. And both sides of the Atlantic responded to the pressure of European commerce, which sowed the seeds of a world economy based on the resources of the Americas but made possible by the subjugation of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans.

In 1984 a group of distinguished American and Japanese scholars met under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council--with the support of the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Japan-United States Friendship Commission--to examine relations between their countries in a historical and global context. They recognized that the constantly growing issues between the two countries, which were becoming so complex that many across the Pacific were warning of a 'drifting apart, ' if not a rupture, of two of the closest allies since the war, could only be understood if examined historically--in relation to the overall themes and trends in the past several decades--and globally--in the context of changing world and regional affairs.

Distinguished historians of the ancient world analyze the earliest developments in human history and the rise of the first major civilizations, from the Middle East to India and China. In this volume of the six-part History of the World series, Hans-Joachim Gehrke, a noted scholar of ancient Greece, leads a distinguished group of historians in analyzing prehistory, the earliest human settlements, and the rise of the world’s first advanced civilizations. The Neolithic period—sometimes called the Agrarian Revolution—marked a turning point in human history. People were no longer dependent entirely on hunting animals and gathering plants but instead cultivated crops and reared livestock. This led to a more settled existence, notably along rivers such as the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Ganges, and Yangzi. Increased mastery of metals, together with innovations in tools and technologies, led to economic specialization, from intricate crafts to deadlier weapons, which contributed to the growth of village communities as well as trade networks. Family was the fundamental social unit, its relationships and hierarchies modeled on the evolving relationship between ruler and ruled. Religion, whether polytheist or monotheist, played a central role in shaping civilizations from the Persians to the Israelites. The world was construed in terms of a divinely ordained order: the Chinese imperial title Huangdi expressed divinity and heavenly splendor, while Indian emperor Ashoka was heralded as the embodiment of moral law. From the latest findings about the Neanderthals to the founding of imperial China to the world of Western classical antiquity, Making Civilizations offers an authoritative overview of humanity’s earliest eras.

International History: A Cultural Approach offers an innovative history of modern international relations that stresses cultural themes. In place of the usual focus on great-power rivalries, diplomatic negotiations, military conflict, and other phenomena in which sovereign nations are the key players, this book focuses on intercultural relations as individuals, races, religions, and non-state actors interact across national boundaries, to provide a fresh perspective on modern international history. Among the themes covered are: - Nationalism and cosmopolitanism - Migration - Cross-cultural encounters - Consumerism and youth cultures - Environmental transformations - Economic and technological globalization Akira Iriye and Petra Goedde's approach offers a deeper understanding of international history, focusing on people and their cultures rather than just state level interactions.

Global Interdependence provides a new account of world history from the end of World War II to the present, an era when transnational communities began to challenge the long domination of the nation-state. In this single-volume survey, leading scholars elucidate the political, economic, cultural, and environmental forces that have shaped the planet in the past sixty years. Offering fresh insight into international politics since 1945, Wilfried Loth examines how miscalculations by both the United States and the Soviet Union brought about a Cold War conflict that was not necessarily inevitable. Thomas Zeiler explains how American free-market principles spurred the creation of an entirely new economic order--a global system in which goods and money flowed across national borders at an unprecedented rate, fueling growth for some nations while also creating inequalities in large parts of the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. From an environmental viewpoint, J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke contend that humanity has entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene era, in which massive industrialization and population growth have become the most powerful influences upon global ecology. Petra Goedde analyzes how globalization has impacted indigenous cultures and questions the extent to which a generic culture has erased distinctiveness and authenticity. She shows how, paradoxically, the more cultures blended, the more diversified they became as well. Combining these different perspectives, volume editor Akira Iriye presents a model of transnational historiography in which individuals and groups enter history not primarily as citizens of a country but as migrants, tourists, artists, and missionaries--actors who create networks that transcend traditional geopolitical boundaries.

/I>The Great Powers of East Asia: 1953-1960 are written by some of the world's leading scholars. They contain new information, fresh insights, and useful analyses. The first series of essays focuses on the evolution of American policy. American historians examine the workings of the the Department of State and the Pentagon, and an American and a Chinese analyze the foreign economic policy of the Eisenhower administration in East Asia. The second series of essays is Japan-centered. Together these essays constitute an important contribution to the writing of international history. The contributors reveal the levels of understanding the major powers has of each other and of the smaller nations of the region, informed by different national experiences. The threads they weave together create a far richer tapestry than a national or binational approach could ever produce.

Together these essays tell the story of how two highly self-conscious cultures, with long and proud traditions of their own, have defined themselves both with respect to one another and under the influence of the West.

Originally published in 1980.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Between 1870 and 1945, advances in communication and transportation simultaneously expanded and shrank the world. New technologies erased distance and accelerated the global exchange of people, products, and ideas on an unprecedented scale. A World Connecting focuses on an era when growing global interconnectedness inspired new ambitions but also stoked anxieties and rivalries that would erupt in two world wars-the most destructive conflicts in human history. In five interpretive essays, distinguished historians Emily S. Rosenberg, Charles S. Maier, Tony Ballantyne, Antoinette Burton, Dirk Hoerder, Steven C. Topik, and Allen Wells illuminate the tensions that emerged from intensifying interconnectedness and attempts to control and shape the effects of sweeping change. Each essay provides an overview of a particular theme: modern state-building; imperial encounters; migration; commodity chains; and transnational social and cultural networks. With the emergence of modern statehood and the fluctuating fate of empires came efforts to define and police territorial borders. As people, products, capital, technologies, and affiliations flowed across uneasily bounded spaces, the world both came together and fell apart in unexpected, often horrifying, and sometimes liberating ways. A World Connecting goes beyond nations, empires, and world wars to capture the era's defining feature: the profound and disruptive shift toward an ever more rapidly integrating world.

Chinese-American relations are often viewed through the prism of power rivalry and civilization clash. But China and America s shared history is much more than a catalog of conflicts."Using culture rather than politics or economics as a reference point, Xu Guoqi"highlights significant yet neglected cultural exchanges in which China and America have contributed to each other s national development, building the foundation of what Zhou Enlai called a relationship of equality and mutual benefit.

Xu begins with the story of Anson Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln s ambassador to China, and the 120 Chinese students he played an crucial role in bringing to America, inaugurating a program of Chinese international study that continues today. Such educational crosscurrents moved both ways, as is evident in Xu s profile of the remarkable Ge Kunhua, the Chinese poet who helped spearhead Chinese language teaching in Boston in the 1870s. Xu examines the contributions of two American scholars to Chinese political and educational reform in the twentieth century: the law professor Frank Goodnow, who took in part in making the Yuan Shikai government s constitution; and the philosopher John Dewey, who helped promote Chinese modernization as a visiting scholar at Peking University and elsewhere. Xu also shows that it was Americans who first introduced to China the modern Olympic movement, and that China has used sports ever since to showcase its rise as a global power. These surprising shared traditions between two nations, Xu argues, provide the best roadmap for the future of Sino-American relations."

The 'global community' is a term we take for granted today. But how did the global community, both as an idea and as a reality, originate and develop over time? This book examines this concept by looking at the emergence, growth, and activities of international organizations - both governmental and nongovernmental - from the end of the nineteenth century to today. Akira Iriye, one of this country's most preeminent historians, proposes a significant rereading of the history of the last fifty years, suggesting that the central influence on the international scene in this period was not the Cold War, but rather a deepening web of international interactions. This groundbreaking book, the first systematic study of international organizations by a historian, moves beyond the usual framework for studying international relations - politics, war, diplomacy, and other interstate affairs - as it traces the crucial role played by international organizations in determining the shape of the world today. Iriye's sweeping discussion of international organizations around the world examines multinational corporations, religious organizations, regional communities, transnational private associations, environmental organizations, and other groups to illuminate the evolution and meaning of the global community and global consciousness. While states have been preoccupied with their own national interests such as security and prestige, international organizations have been actively engaged in promoting cultural exchange, offering humanitarian assistance, extending developmental aid, protecting the environment, and championing human rights. In short, they have made important contributions to making the world a more interdependent and peaceful place. This book, tracing the development of the global community in a truly innovative way, will win a wide readership among those interested in understanding the growing phenomenon of globalization and its meaning for us today. "Global Community" is based on Iriye's Jefferson lectures at the University of California, Berkeley.

Together these essays tell the story of how two highly self-conscious cultures, with long and proud traditions of their own, have defined themselves both with respect to one another and under the influence of the West. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

International History: A Cultural Approach offers an innovative history of modern international relations that stresses cultural themes. In place of the usual focus on great-power rivalries, diplomatic negotiations, military conflict, and other phenomena in which sovereign nations are the key players, this book focuses on intercultural relations as individuals, races, religions, and non-state actors interact across national boundaries, to provide a fresh perspective on modern international history. Among the themes covered are: - Nationalism and cosmopolitanism - Migration - Cross-cultural encounters - Consumerism and youth cultures - Environmental transformations - Economic and technological globalization Akira Iriye and Petra Goedde's approach offers a deeper understanding of international history, focusing on people and their cultures rather than just state level interactions.

Writing in Life magazine in February 1941, Henry Luce memorably announced the arrival of "The American Century." The phrase caught on, as did the belief that America's moment was at hand. Yet as Andrew J. Bacevich makes clear, that century has now ended, the victim of strategic miscalculation, military misadventures, and economic decline. To take stock of the short American Century and place it in historical perspective, Bacevich has assembled a richly provocative range of perspectives. What did this age of reputed American preeminence signify? What caused its premature demise? What legacy remains in its wake? Distinguished historians Jeffry Frieden, Akira Iriye, David Kennedy, Walter LaFeber, Jackson Lears, Eugene McCarraher, Emily Rosenberg, and Nikhil Pal Singh offer illuminating answers to these questions. Achievement and failure, wisdom and folly, calculation and confusion all make their appearance in essays that touch on topics as varied as internationalism and empire, race and religion, consumerism and globalization. As the United States grapples with protracted wars, daunting economic uncertainty, and pressing questions about exactly what role it should play in a rapidly changing world, understanding where the nation has been and how it got where it is today is critical. What did the forging of the American Century-with its considerable achievements but also its ample disappointments and missed opportunities-ultimately yield? That is the question this important volume answers.

Why do some governments and societies attach great significance to a particular anniversary year whereas others seem less inclined to do so? What motivates the orchestration of elaborate commemorative activities in some countries? What are they supposed to accomplish, for both domestic and international audience? In what ways do commemorations in Asia Pacific fit into the global memory culture of war commemoration? In what ways are these commemorations intertwined with current international politics? This book presents the first large-scale analysis of how countries in the Asia Pacific and beyond commemorated the seventieth anniversaries of the end of World War II. Consisting of in-depth case studies of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, United States, Russia, and Germany, this unique collective effort demonstrates how memories of the past as reflected in public commemorations and contemporary politics-both internal and international-profoundly affect each other.

As the nineteenth century became the twentieth and the dangers of rampant nationalism became more evident, people throughout the world embraced the idea that a new spirit of internationalism might be fostered by better communication and understanding among nations. Cultural internationalism came into its own after the end of World War I, when intellectuals and artists realized that one way of forging a stable and lasting international peace was to encourage international cultural exchange and cooperation.

In "Cultural Internationalism and World Order, " noted historian Akira Iriye shows how widespread and serious a following this idea had. He describes a surprising array of efforts to foster cooperation, from the creation of an international language to student exchange programs, international lecture circuits, and other cultural activities. But he does not overlook the tensions the movement encountered with the real politics of the day, including the militarism that led up to the World War I, the rise of extreme strains of nationalism in Germany and Japan before World War II, and the bipolar rivalries of the Cold War.

Iriye concludes that the effort of cultural internationalism can only be appreciated only in the context of world politics. A lasting and stable world order, he argues, cannot rely just on governments and power politics; it also depends upon the open exchange of cultures among peoples in pursuing common intellectual and cultural interests.

The third volume for the OUP/National History Center series, Reinterpreting History, this book offers a critical look at the political movement encompassed by human rights, a term rarely used before the 1940s. An agenda for human rights, with particular attention to international justice in the wake of crimes against humanity, women's rights, indigenous rights, the right to health care, all developed in the second half of the 20th century. Drawing on the work of legal scholars, political scientists, journalists, activists, and historians, human rights as a field of research has been characterized by analysis of natural rights, study of key documents like the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, discussion of activism and NGOs, and analysis of rhetoric. This volume will take a case study approach that will shed light on different perspectives, methodologies, and conceptualizations for the study of human rights history. The contributors to this volume look at the wave of human rights legislation emerging out of World War II, including the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Nuremberg trial, and the Geneva Conventions, and the flowering of human rights activity in the 1970s and beyond, including anti-torture campaigns and Amnesty International, Indonesia and East Timor, international scientists and human rights, and female genital mutilation. The book concludes with a look at the UN Declaration at its 60th anniversary. Together the group of renowned senior and junior scholars create a volume that can introduce students from a range of disciplines to this topic, as well as offer new perspectives for scholars.