ISSN:
0026-749X
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
Ethnic Sciences
,
History
,
Political Science
,
Economics
Notes:
To an Englishman of my generation, whose schooling took place during the 1920–30s, the practice of comparing Japan with Britain has long been a commonplace. School geography lessons on Japan invariably began with a reference to the temperate offshore island kingdom of eastern Asia as the ‘Britain of the East’, and this theme was often elaborated to include the characterization of Osaka and Kobe respectively as the Manchester and Liverpool of Japan. But following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 the climate of opinion began to change, and so did the analogy. In 1936, Freda Utley, in a book which attracted widespread interest, observed:Although the real Japan comes a little closer to being the Prussia of Asia than the Britain of Asia, it is fundamentally unlike all these romantic pictures, and in so far as it resembles another country, that country is Russia under the tyranny of the Tsars.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X0000192X
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