The Abacus and the Sword
The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6083056 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joshua A Fogel (0000-0001-5711-9713, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 473 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | REVIEW |
| Review of | The abacus and the sword: The Japanese penetration of Korea, 1895-1910, Peter Duus, 1995 |
| Venue | Journal of Japanese Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0095-6848 • E-ISSN: 1549-4721 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/133259 |
| OpenAlex | W2069502612 |
| Language | EN |
What forces were behind Japan's emergence as the first non-Western colonial power at the turn of the twentieth century? Peter Duus brings a new perspective to Meiji expansionism in this pathbreaking study of Japan's acquisition of Korea, the largest of its colonial possessions. He shows how Japan's drive for empire was part of a larger goal to become the economic, diplomatic, and strategic equal of the Western countries who had imposed a humiliating treaty settlement on the country in the 1850s. Duus maintains that two separate but interlinked processes, one political/military and the other economic, propelled Japan's imperialism. Every attempt at increasing Japanese political influence licensed new opportunities for trade, and each new push for Japanese economic interests buttressed, and sometimes justified, further political advances. The sword was the servant of the abacus, the abacus the agent of the sword. While suggesting that Meiji imperialism shared much with the Western colonial expansion that provided both model and context, Duus also argues that it was 'backward imperialism' shaped by a sense of inferiority vis-a-vis the West. Along with his detailed diplomatic and economic history, Duus offers a unique social history that illuminates the motivations and lifestyles of the overseas Japanese of the time, as well as the views that contemporary Japanese had of themselves and their fellow Asians
Abacus (architecture) · Archaeology · Operations research · Penetration (warfare · SWORD · Engineering · History · Japanese History and Culture · Mechanical Engineering
Height inequality and socioeconomic implications in Korea
Janus and the Japanese Empire
East Asian Studies
Continuation of Status Quo under Colonial Economic Drain, 1910–45
Colonialism and the ‘Korea Problem’ in the Historiography of Modern Japan
Japanese Female Settlers in Colonial Korea
Ambiguous Founding Father
Philip Jaisohn, the Political Evangelist, 1896–98
Politics, Commerce and Construction of Chinese ‘Otherness’ in Korea
The Sources of Social Power
War, Religion and Empire
Immigration and Citizenship in Japan
The Japanese Empire
A History of Japan, 1582–1941
Pioneers of Overseas Japanese Development
Maps and Metaphors of the "Small Eastern Sea" in Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868)
Japanese Narratives on Life in Late-Colonial Korea
A Sentimental Journey
Sanitizing Empire
The Bishop’s Dilemma
Uses of Japanese Popular Culture
The Ondol Problem and the Politics of Forest Conservation in Colonial Korea
Abuse of Modernity
Conflicting Nostalgia
The Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society) and the Rise of Nationalism, Pan-Asianism, and Militarism in Japan, 1901–1925
Racialization and Colonial Space
Journalism behind Bars
Zainichi Koreans, African Americans, and the Racial Politics of Comparison
From Process to Politics
The Meaning of Japan (1937)
Masked justice
Progress impeded
Unread relics of a transnational ‘hometown’ in rural western Japan
The Sōtō Sect and Japanese Military Imperialism in Korea
Contextualizing the Centennial of Japanese Colonial Rule in Korea
Reeds, river islands, and inter-imperial conflict on the early twentieth-century Sino-Korean border
Surrounding Areas’ and The Recalibration of Japan’s Threat Perception
Caricaturing “traitors”
It takes two to Tango
The Ministry of Asiatic Russia
The Military-Adventurous Complex
Imagined homogeneity
Assimilation's Racializing Sensibilities
The Shame of Empire
Unpacking the Archive
Japan in Tianjin
Japan's First War Reporter
Japan's “Yellow Peril”
Bridging the gaps
The Soy Sauce Industry in Korea
Three Portrayals of ‘Sacrifice’
Japanese colonialism and Korean development
Europeans and Americans in Korea, 1882–1910
Contextualizing the ideas of technology in Korea—Questions of technology and early modern experiences
| Highly cited | No |
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