Japanese Geopolitics and the Western Imagination

Description

This book is the first attempt to comprehensively introduce Japanese geopolitics. Europe’s role in disseminating knowledge globally to shape the world according to its standards is an unchallenged premise in world politics. In this story, Japan is regarded as an enthusiastic importer of the knowledge. The book challenges this ground by examining how European geopolitics, the theory of the modern state, traveled to Japan in the first half of the last century, and demonstrates that the same theory can invoke diverged imaginations of the world by examining a range of historical, political, and literary texts. Focusing on the transformation of power, knowledge, and subjectivity in time and space, Watanabe provides a detailed account to reconsider the formation of contemporary world order of the modern territorial states. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Introduction: Standing in a Place, Imagining a Space (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 1-24 Contextualizing Traveling Theory (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 25-58 Inside the Place of Interpretation (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 59-92 Analytical Framework (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 93-120 Identifying the Site of Creation (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 121-151 The Importation of Geopolitics into Japan (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 153-186 Japanese Geopolitics (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 187-218 Conclusion: A Successful Journey? (Atsuko Watanabe)....Pages 219-230 Back Matter ....Pages 231-265