J eremy A. Y ellen . The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

In this thoroughly researched book, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War, Jeremy Yellen traces the shifting policy significance and evolving meanings of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” both within Japan and in other countries caught up in that imagined space. The book contributes to a growing body of scholarship that, rather than simply dismissing wartime rhetoric as no more than a flimsy cover for imperialism, seeks to understand its development and impact. By interrogating numerous explanations, interpretations, and uses of the slogan and its associated rhetorical flourishes by Japanese politicians, pundits, and policymakers, as well as the leaders of Burma and the Philippines, Yellen highlights the concept’s malleability. He identifies moments in which changing circumstances and competing perspectives brought about new or conflicting interpretations. Viewing the evolution of the idea from 1940 to 1945—when it was used to envision, justify, and even...

China · East Asia · Empire · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Prosperity · Rhetoric · Scholarship · Slogan · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies