Provincializing Empire
Omi Merchants in the Japanese Transpacific Diaspora
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of California Press
Published:21st Mar '23
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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Provincializing Empire explores the global history of Japanese expansion through a regional lens. It rethinks the nation-centered geography and chronology of empire by uncovering the pivotal role of expeditionary merchants from Ōmi (present-day Shiga Prefecture) and their modern successors. Tracing their lives from the early modern era, and writing them into the global histories of empire, diaspora, and capitalism, Jun Uchida offers an innovative analysis of expansion through a story previously untold: how the nation's provincials built on their traditions to create a transpacific diaspora that stretched from Seoul to Vancouver, while helping shape the modern world of transoceanic exchange.
"Jun Uchida’s magnificent new book. . . . Speaks not merely to the historiography of modern Japan but to wider debates about evolutions in imperial practices across an alleged early modern/modern rupture. . . . She has pushed scholars to understand ‘provincializing’ in a way different from Chakrabarty’s: one that pays real attention to local voices, ideas, and practices." * Monumenta Nipponica *
"Provincializing Empire is an outstanding study. . . . [It] challenges notions of a top-down Meiji developmental state and offers us new ways to think about Japanese capitalism, empire, and migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is essential reading not only for scholars of Japan’s modern empire but also anyone interested in comparative studies of diasporas, capitalism, and imperialism." * Pacific Historical Review *
"Provincializing Empire masterfully combines deep archival research with a broad synthesis of secondary materials to recast the spatial and temporal parameters of Japanese capitalist development and overseas expansion. . . . [The book] will have a lasting impact and deserves to be read widely and repeatedly." * Journal of Japanese Studies *
ISBN: 9780520390119
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: 590g
378 pages