Japan's colonization of Korea: discourse and power

Abstract

"From its creation in the early twentieth-century, policymakers used the discourse of international law to legitimate Japan's empire. Although the Japanese state aggrandizers' reliance on this discourse did not create the imperial nation Japan would become, their fluent use of its terms inscribed Japan's claims as legal practice within Japan and abroad. Focusing on Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, Alexis Dudden gives long-needed attention to the intellectual history of the empire and brings to light presumptions of the twentieth century's so-called international system by describing its most powerful - and most often overlooked - member's engagement with that system." "This landmark study greatly enhances our understanding of the intellectual underpinnings of Japan's imperial aspirations. Carefully researched and cogently argued, it makes clear that, even before Japan annexed Korea, it had embarked on a legal and often legislating mission to make its colonization legitimate in the eyes of the world. In so doing, Tokyo's early twentieth-century policy makers confirmed Japan's place in the international history of empire."--BOOK JACKET.

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