- Modern East Asia at War

Catalog description

This seminar covers in depth the history of East Asia in 1937–1953, a period characterized by violence, upheaval, suffering, and death on an almost unimaginable scale. The Japanese empire’s cataclysmic clash with the Republic of China and (eventually) the United States left Japan in ruins and under American occupation, China on the verge of a Communist revolution, and Korea divided between American and Soviet spheres of influence. The consequences of these events led to America’s war in Vietnam and still define and bedevil East Asia’s geopolitics today. Our readings will include some of the most significant recent scholarship on four conflicts: the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Pacific War, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. Although we will read much about politics, diplomacy, and military campaigns, our focus will just as often be on the experiences and stories of ordinary people caught in extraordinarily harrowing times.