Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism

Twentieth Century Japan: The Emergence of a World Power #8

by Louise Young

In this first social and cultural history of Japan's construction of Manchuria, Louise Young offers an incisive examination of the nature of Japanese imperialism. Focusing on the domestic impact of Japan's activities in Northeast China between 1931 and 1945, Young considers "metropolitan effects" of empire building: how people at home imagined and experienced the empire they called Manchukuo.

Contrary to the conventional assumption that a few army officers and bureaucrats were responsible for Japan's overseas expansion, Young finds that a variety of organizations helped to mobilize popular support for Manchukuo―the mass media, the academy, chambers of commerce, women's organizations, youth groups, and agricultural cooperatives―leading to broad-based support among diverse groups of Japanese. As the empire was being built in China, Young shows, an imagined Manchukuo was emerging at home, constructed of visions of a defensive lifeline, a developing economy, and a settler's paradise.

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Asia, China, Japanese History, War

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Louise Young has worked as a social worker, fire tower worker and model. At the University of Victoria, she completed two BFAs - one in creative writing and the other in painting. Her stories have appeared in The Malahat Review, The Louisville Review and Prism International, while her play, Hungry Ghosts, won the CBC Playwriting Competition in 1989. Icarus is her first novel. Young lives in Victoria, B.C.

Reviews

[Chi Pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most amazing books on Japanese history that I have ever read. Let me tell you why.

When did the British start to think of themselves as belong to a nation, thus entering/achieving modernity? Long story short, the answer is the moment they had to consider whether they were the same kind of people with the Indians. In other words, the flow of influence between the metropolis and the empire had never been uni-directioned, with "modern" institutions from the mother country imported to the colony. In fact, empire building held as much influence on the metropolian society, sometimes keeping it hostage.

Louise Young argues in her book that for Japan, Manchuria is India for British. Empire building had been a project, sometimes even sparked by supply-demand and by the historicity of the moment. Manchuria had been a "total empire", the way World War II was a "total war" - a hybrid of war front and home front. The making of Manchuria took place not only in the colony itself, but also within the heart of Japan. In the end, as Young concluded in the last sentence of the final chapter: Manchukuo the empire was the answer that the Japanese came up with to deal with the dilemma of modernity - of becoming a nation in the age of mass media and mass politics.

Each chapter, except for the first and the last, focuses on a site of the imperial project, and as such delivers a compelling story on how Manchuria became that imagined paradise in the minds of the metropolitan. Several important themes were woven in, and of course I would recommend actually reading the book rather than browsing through any kinds of theme summary.

And then, there are also important areas that the book never gets to discuss. For example, the imperial project of British India heavily involved religion, and Manchuria of course did not escape the same mechanism. But that area in itself could have already become an enourmous book, so let's hope that the author might follow up with the issue one day. Or better, if a book has already emerged about that subject, please recommend me.

And, for those of you who might now know, this book falls into the category of social/cultural history - which arguably is the most enjoyable type of history for a casual reader. So why not pick it up?

[OutboardCap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and very dry.


This book assesses the impact of Manchurian development on Japan in eight sectors and demonstrates how the experience changed Japanese society and politics.


Every question I had on the matter was answered and I learned a lot on the topic.


Sometimes the writing is good, but it feels like Young never takes a break or catches her breath.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author reviewed a broad array of sources to provide an in depth, comprehensive, and nuanced analysis of the ways in which the colony of Manchuko was both a product of and a profound influence on Japanese society from its inception in 1931 until the end of what the Japanese call The Great Pacific War in 1945. This was a perspective I had not encountered in my readings about such other colonial projects by Japan in that era such as Korea.

Young provides interesting explanations to such questions as why Japanese businesses, academics, the mass media, and the public supported the government's efforts to colonize Manchuko. And informative analyses of the complex interactions which took place between the Army running the project and these other players contributing to and trying to influence it.

Unlike many academic books the author's prose was direct and did not use an inordinate number of abstract concepts. When she did employ one of the latter, she explained it quite thoroughly. Additionally, she was careful to provide English translations almost all of the time when she used Japanese terminology. These qualities made the book quite readable for the most part.

As with any book which is this comprehensive there are times when its careful analysis made it slow going. For example, a detailed description of the machinations which the Army and the civilian politicians went through in their struggles for control over the Cabinet post 1931 were more than I wished to know. So was the naming of a number of Japanese Marxist leaning academics trying to influence economic policy making in Manchuko in the late 1930's. Thankfully, Young provides a few introductory paragraphs at the beginning and 1-2 pages of conclusions at the end of each chapter. So, if one wants to grasp the general trends and main points without all of the specifics one can read these two parts of each chapter and skim/skip the rest.

Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in getting a thorough picture of Japan's colonial expansionism in Manchuria from, what for me was, the unique perspective of its impact on and interaction with Japanese society. It was worthwhile enough that I would like to read more of Young's work in the future.

Addendum (Oct 31, 2019): after a discussion in a course on the Japanese Empire I would note a few more flaws with Total Empire. First, Young did not provide any historical context from which to view Manchuria at the time the Japanese initially got involved there. Per my class there were Han Chinese and Koreans who had been living there for at least a few generations. What was their role in and reaction to Japan’s project there? Second, how did the Japanese get the land for their farms there? Did they buy it? Did they simply take it by force? The author did not explain this.

[lys · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. An alternate title could have been something like "Dreaming of Manchuria," as Young argues that Manchuria existed as a projection of domestic issues and future utopias onto the colonial sphere. Young intelligently places Japan in line with the English and French empires, describing the Japanese obsession with Manchuria as similar to the English obsession with India and the French obsession with Algeria, each mutually constituting pairs. If there is a critique to be made, it is that the narrative can seem teleological at times; is it the case that we necessarily create the structures of empire simply by talking about it? Were there any groups in opposition to Japan's "incremental imperialism"? How did ideologies such as pan-Asianism make Japan's "total empire" unique from the British or French experience?

[Austin Barselau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louise Young’s “Japan Total Empire” untangles how Japan’s imperialistic designs on Manchuria in the early half of the 20th century reflected its utopian vision of empire building. Young, a historian of modern Japan, leverages a potpourri of artifacts of popular culture, including magazines, pulp fiction, bureaucratic records, travel diaries and maps to show how Japan’s entire population was mobilized to pursue conquest, economic development and mass migration to the Chinese steppe. Prodded by a combination of its own geopolitical insecurities, as well as a desire to carve out its own sphere of influence, Japan set out to create a “new heaven on earth” by invading, settling, and industrializing its newly created puppet state of Manchukuo.

This book however is not without limitations: it focuses on a narrow window of Japanese development in the region during the 1930s, and does not examine the rise and fall of the territory throughout the war. It is also does not adequately scrutinize its economic performance, focusing more on the social effects, both in terms of how mass media mobilized support for conquest, as well as how migrant farmers were resettled in the region. Young also writes in a way that is exculpatory of Japanese atrocities on the Asian continent, marking it as a fait accompli by the Japanese military, intellectuals, and the business community rather than a naked power grab. It does not equally weigh the destructive effects on Chinese society, including genocide, human experimentation, and other war crimes.

This book instead provides a vision of how Japan nurtured and preserved the conditions for its military adventurism, rather than a holistic and critical examination of the effects such an empire building project had on the course of the war and the native population.

[Charlotte Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very long, but very informative on the subject of Japanese imperialism in Manchuria.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely well researched. Explains the concept of total empire and should have something for anyone.

[HJSUN · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive and extraordinary book about the history of Manchukuo or Manchuria.

[Munehito Moro · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazingly detailed account of Japan's invasion of Manchuria (northeastern area of present-day China), and how the Empire of Japan set up its puppet state, Manchukuo.

You've heard of Manchukuo if you have watched The Last Emperor by the late Bernardo Bertolucci, the film about Pu Yi. It is a magnificent film that has stood the test of time, but it (deliberately) simplified how Japan manipulated him, and why. Also, the movie stays away from the controversial topics like Unit 731.

Another, more recent film, Cliff Walkers by Zhang Yimou, recreates Japan-ruled Harbin and Unit 731's facilities in the city. It'll be a great preparation if you are interested in this book, but not sure how to ready yourself.

My favorite part of this book is that, Manchukuo settlers were sent there from Japan to militarize the area, to prepare for a future battle with the USSR. Another point I found fascinating is that Manchukuo's creation came with Japan's first boom in traveling abroad. As Manchukuo was technically a foreign country to Japan, they needed passports and visa. That led to the formation of Japan Travel Bureau (JTB), which still exists today as a private travel agency.

Lots of intellectuals and writers travelled to Manchukuo, and I've read some of their writings. The most notable is Kobayashi Hideo's in my opinion, who founded literary criticism in Japan. His essays on war and Manchukuo left a significant effect on Japan's readership in the 30s.

I couldn't have written my first novel, which is set in Manchukuo, without this book. It's highly informative and incisive. A must-read book for anyone who wants to have in-depth knowledge about Japan's imperialist past.

In fact, every Japanese reader should try this to inform themselves about their country.

[Raymond Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

An academic book that comprehensively analyzes all aspects of the history of Manchukuo. I am concerned with Chapter 3, the relationship between Japanese imperial jingoism and the mass media. On the whole, the private media in Imperial Japan was not subject to much scrutiny and control by the Imperial government but rather spontaneously catered to the government's policies and the zeitgeist in Japan at the time. The rapid development of imperialism also urgently required the official and private media to mobilize national racism on all fronts. Therefore, contemporary researchers now need to pay more attention to why there was such a wide range of jingoism and racism among the citizens of the Japanese Empire at that time, which can also explain similar ideologies in China today.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a Japanese translation of this book before I had a chance to read the English original recently. Not surprisingly the original version reads much better and more compelling. As another reviewer has already pointed out, Professor Young draws quite heavily on secondary (and some quite outdated) Japanese scholarship. But I think she does a great job of analysing a range of media and local sources to reconceptualize the sweeping cultural impact of empire on the metropole.

[Benemint · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is a book that tries to capture the atmosphere and the big machine of social empire in the 1930s Japan.

Strong:
Major synthesis of information from Japanese secondary sources.

Weak:
Bits and pieces from everywhere. No new information that is worth underlining with big !! marks.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fortunately this book was great and used primary sources immensely. Unfortunately it once again was another reflection of what Manchukuo meant for Japan and not a straight up history of Manchukuo, which is what I have always wanted. Still, good read on the subject.

[Mike F · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fascinating. A complete picture of the depth, breadth, and longevity of Japan's imperial project in Manchuria and, later, northern China.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5