This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He explains British and American policies in the region as reactive, but concludes that their responses helped to determine which factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the events leading to the Second World War.

While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the international path, there were others who tended to side with the army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan joined her allies in making war on the United States and the colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and, with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.

In A History of Manchuria, Ian Nish describes the turbulent times which the three Northeastern Provinces of China experienced in the last two centuries. The site of three serious wars in 1894, 1904 and 1919, the territory rarely enjoyed peace though its economy progressed because of the building of arterial railways. From 1932 it came under the rule of the Japanese-inspired government of Manchukuo based at Changchun. But that was short-lived, being brought to an end by the punitive incursion and occupation of the country by Soviet forces in 1945. Thereafter the devastated territory was fought over by Chinese Nationalist and Communist armies until Mukden (Shenyang) fell to the Communists in October 1948. Manchuria, under-populated but strategically important, was the location for disputes between China, Russia and Japan, the three powers making up the 'triangle' which gives the name to the sub-title of this study. These countries were hardly ever at peace with one another, the result being that the economic growth of a potentially wealthy country was seriously retarded. The story is illustrated by extracts drawn from contemporary documents of the three triangular powers.

First published in 2001. This is Volume XI of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the Japanese, from 1869 to 1942. It includes sections on the Iwakura period, the Mutsu period, Aoki, Komura, Kato, Ishi, Shidehara, Tanaka, Uchida, Hirota, Konoe and ending with the Matsuoka period in 1941.

A study of the Manchurian and Shanghai crises, the first serious confrontation between Japan and the world community. The book focuses on how the League of Nations attempted to cope with the emergency; and on the clash of attitudes in Japanese politics.

In this book Professor Nish deals with one of the most important aspects of far eastern politics in the critical period between 1894 and 1907. His object is to demonstrate how Britain and Japan, at first separately and later jointly, reacted to Russian encroachments in China and east Asia; he is concerned also with the policies of the other European powers and of the U.S., to whose hostility towards the Anglo-Japanese alliance after 1905 Britain showed herself increasingly sensitive. First published in 1966, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

First published in 2001. This is Volume XI of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the Japanese, from 1869 to 1942. It includes sections on the Iwakura period, the Mutsu period, Aoki, Komura, Kato, Ishi, Shidehara, Tanaka, Uchida, Hirota, Konoe and ending with the Matsuoka period in 1941.

Driven by the need to identify, classify and assess western technology and culture together with a desire to advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called 'unequal treaties' - the new Meiji government of 1868 despatched a top-level ministerial team to the west which, in 1872, arrived in the United States. In all, they spent 205 days in America, 122 days in Britain and two months in France, as well as visiting other countries including Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy.

Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies, held in Budapest in August 1997 (the year also marking the 125th anniversary of Iwakura's arrival), this volume presents a valuable new overview of the mission as a whole, with the significance and impact of the visit to each country being separately assessed. A supplement to the book looks at several 'post-Iwakura' topics, including a review of the mission's chief chronicler, Kume Kunitake.

This volume of the Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan series, published under the Japan Library imprint, collects the work of Richard Storry on contempory issues and the history of Japan.

Due to the success of the first two volumes, here is a third collection in the Biographical Portraits series. The choice of biographies and quality of writing provides an intriguing insight into Anglo-Japanese exchange and relations.

Driven by two imperatives - the need to identify, classify and assess Western technology and culture, as well as advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called "unequal treaties", the new Meiji government of 1868 dispatched a top-level ministerial team to the West, arriving first in the United States in January 1872. In all, the mission spent 205 days in America, followed by 122 days in Britain and two months in France, including visits to Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy. The sheer scale of the mission's "vision", and logistics was remarkable, even more so, however, was the Japanese government's decision to allow so many of its top people to be away together for such an extended period of time. The findings of the mission were to have enormous significance regarding the future direction of the new state of Japan. Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies in 1997 (which coincided with the 125th anniversary of the Iwakura mission), this overview of the mission's goal and achievements separately assesses the content and impact of the visit to each country.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 has been seen as the turning point of the development of the modern world. Written by a specialist in Japanese diplomacy, this book has been described by the Times Higher Education Supplement as 'diplomatic history at its very best'.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 has been seen as the turning point of the development of the modern world. Written by a specialist in Japanese diplomacy, this book has been described by the Times Higher Education Supplement as 'diplomatic history at its very best'.

Following his earlier account of The Anglo-Japanese Alliance from 1894 t0 1907, Dr Nish's book studies the renewal of the alliance in 1911 and the working relationship between the two countries until the alliance ended in 1923. First published in 1972, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

This work includes topics such as international relations affecting Japan, Russia, China and Korea in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Developed in close collaboration with Ian Nish, this book contains a wide and substantial cross-section of writings, thematically structured around essays in the special areas of Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

Continuing the context of Anglo-Japanese exchange and historic connections from the first volume, Volume II incorporates a further 20 studies of key personalities. This includes: Edmund Morel, pioneer railway builder in Meiji Japan; Alexander Shand, an important figure in the development of Japanese banking; Lafcadio Hearn, the great interpreter of Japanese culture; Rev Dr John Batchelor, whose work with the Ainu people of northern Japan is well-known; and, more recently, Shigeru Yoshida, Japan's first post-war prime minister, and Christmas Humphreys, founder of the Buddhist Society, whose work and writings provided a jey post-war bridge in East-West understanding.

This volume, intended to complement Hotta-Lister s original 1999 study, marks the centenary of London s 1910 great Japan-British Exhibition, which was held at White City, Shepherd s Bush, and attracted over eight million visitors during its six-month stay. While the initiative came from Britain, the Japanese Government was the major source of funding for the Japanese side of the Exhibition. Using the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as its springboard, Japan at the time a new colonial power hoped to bring about a greater understanding of its cultures and traditions and thereby stimulate trade and commerce between the two countries. This aspiration had particular poignancy, given the fact that Japan was still recovering from near bankruptcy following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. In the event, the Japanese press, unlike the British press, took umbrage at what they considered the trivialization of Japanese culture, thus in part frustrating the positive cultural, commercial and political outcomes that were hoped for. Eighteen months later, Emperor Meiji died and the Great War of 1914-18 followed soon after, thereby relegating the exhibition its origins, composition, relevance and impact to oblivion until recent times. The papers in this volume, therefore, drawn from four centenary conferences held in London and Tokyo, offer an important spotlight on the exhibition s legacy specifically in the contexts of commerce and culture. The contents include the following themes: The Exhibition and domestic conditions in Britain and Japan; the Exhibition and Japan s economic background; selling the backward Japanese economy; imperialism and the Exhibition; the Japanese media and the Exhibition; the arts of Britain and Japan; Ainu in London; Japanese fine art; the human legacy; Japanese gardens. This book has wide inter-disciplinary relevance for students in modern East Asian Studies, but especially in the context of colonial and economic history, inter-cultural exchange and Anglo-Japanese relations.

Commissioned by the Japan Society as the companion volume to British Envoys in Japan, 1959-1972 (2004), this collection of essays on a century of official Japanese representation in the United Kingdom completes the history of bilateral diplomatic relations up to the mid-1960s, concluding with Ambassador Ohno Katsumi's highly successful six-year assignment in 1964. In all, twelve authors, half of whom are Japanese , contribute to the work. In addition to the nineteen biographies, there are essays on the history of the Japanese Embassy buildings in London, an overview of Japanese envoys in Britain between 1862 and 1872 by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, as well as aspects of embassy life which illuminate some of the factors impacting on the life-style of residents in London in former times, including an entertaining personal memoir by Ayako Ishizaka of 'A Diplomat's Daughter in the 1930s'. By way of appendix, the volume concludes with a short history of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) up to the present day.

This collection of papers, selected from those given at the Anglo-Japanese Conference held in London in 1979, focuses on British and Japanese views of the events leading up to, during and immediately after the Second World War. 'Paired' chapters on the same period, one by a Japanese scholar, one by a British, illustrate the differing perspectives on the same events, and the long period of time covered allows the collection to demonstrate how greatly each country's view of the other changed with the changes in the international situation. The three sections cover the negotiations between Britain and Japan in the long run-up to the war, the activities of the two countries during the conflict, their planning for the post-war Far East and the actual relationship that emerged. Since the papers are grounded in the archives of both countries, the study is a pioneering and fascinating exploration of Anglo-Japanese relations during this period.