Weaving together chapters on imperial Japan's wartime mobilization, Asia's first wave of postwar decolonization, and Cold War geopolitical conflict in the region, Engineering Asia seeks to demonstrate how Asia's present prosperity did not arise from a so-called 'economic miracle' but from the violent and dynamic events of the 20th century. The book argues that what continued to operate throughout these tumultuous eras were engineering networks of technology. Constructed at first for colonial development under Japan, these networks transformed into channels of overseas development aid that constituted the Cold War system in Asia. Through highlighting how these networks helped shape Asia's contemporary economic landscape, Engineering Asia challenges dominant narratives in Western scholarship of an 'economic miracle' in Japan and South Korea, and the 'Asian Tigers' of Southeast Asia. Students and scholars of East Asian studies, development studies, postcolonialism, Cold War studies and the history of technology and science will find this book immensely useful.

This fascinating study examines the discourse of science in Japan from the 1920s to the 1940s in relation to nationalism and imperialism. How did Japan, with Shinto creation mythology at the absolute core of its national identity, come to promote the advancement of science and technology? Using what logic did wartime Japanese embrace both the rationality that denied and the nationalism that promoted this mythology?
Focusing on three groups of science promoters--technocrats, Marxists, and popular science proponents--this work demonstrates how each group made sense of apparent contradictions by articulating its politics through different definitions of science and visions of a scientific Japan. The contested, complex political endeavor of talking about and promoting science produced what the author calls "scientific nationalism," a powerful current of nationalism that has been overlooked by scholars of Japan, nationalism, and modernity.

This fascinating study examines the discourse of science in Japan from the 1920s to the 1940s in relation to nationalism and imperialism. How did Japan, with Shinto creation mythology at the absolute core of its national identity, come to promote the advancement of science and technology? Using what logic did wartime Japanese embrace both the rationality that denied and the nationalism that promoted this mythology?
Focusing on three groups of science promoters--technocrats, Marxists, and popular science proponents--this work demonstrates how each group made sense of apparent contradictions by articulating its politics through different definitions of science and visions of a scientific Japan. The contested, complex political endeavor of talking about and promoting science produced what the author calls "scientific nationalism," a powerful current of nationalism that has been overlooked by scholars of Japan, nationalism, and modernity.

The Japanese Empire and Latin America provides a comprehensive analysis of the complicated relationship between Japanese migration and capital exportation to Latin America and the rise and fall of the empire in the Asia-Pacific region. It explains how Japan’s presence influenced the cultures and societies of Latin American countries and also explores the role of Latin America in the evolution of Japanese expansion. Together, this collection of essays presents a new narrative of the Japanese experience in Latin America by excavating transpacific perspectives that shed new light on the global significance of Japan’s colonialism and expansionism. The chapters cover a variety of topics, such as economic expansion, migration management, cross-border community making, the surge of pro-Japan propaganda in the Americas, the circulation of knowledge, and the representation of the "other" in Japanese and Latin American fictions. By focusing on both government action and individual experiences, the viewpoints examined create a complete analysis, including the roles the empire played in the process of settler identity formation in Latin America. While the colonialist and expansionist discourses in Japan set a stage for the beginning of Japanese migration to Latin America, it was the vibrant circulation of information between East Asia and the Americas that allowed the empire to stay at the center of the cultural life of communities on the other side of the globe. The empire left an enduring mark on Latin America that is hard to ignore. This volume explores long-neglected aspects of the Japanese global expansion; and thus, moves our understanding of the empire’s significance beyond Asia and rethinks its legacy in global history.

Weaving together chapters on imperial Japan's wartime mobilization, Asia's first wave of postwar decolonization, and Cold War geopolitical conflict in the region, Engineering Asia seeks to demonstrate how Asia's present prosperity did not arise from a so-called 'economic miracle' but from the violent and dynamic events of the 20th century. The book argues that what continued to operate throughout these tumultuous eras were engineering networks of technology. Constructed at first for colonial development under Japan, these networks transformed into channels of overseas development aid that constituted the Cold War system in Asia. Through highlighting how these networks helped shape Asia's contemporary economic landscape, Engineering Asia challenges dominant narratives in Western scholarship of an 'economic miracle' in Japan and South Korea, and the 'Asian Tigers' of Southeast Asia. Students and scholars of East Asian studies, development studies, postcolonialism, Cold War studies and the history of technology and science will find this book immensely useful.