Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern

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Rowman & Littlefield, 2004 - History - 306 pages
In this powerful and provocative book, Prasenjit Duara uses the case of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in northeast China from 1932-1945, to explore how such antinomies as imperialism and nationalism, modernity and tradition, and governmentality and exploitation interacted in the post-World War I period. His study of Manchukuo, which had a population of 40 million and was three times the area of Japan, catalyzes a broader understanding of new global trends that characterized much of the twentieth century. Asking why Manchukuo so desperately sought to appear sovereign, Duara examines the cultural and political resources it mobilized to make claims of sovereignty.



He argues that Manchukuo, as a transparently constructed "nation-state," offers a unique historical laboratory for examining the utilization and transformation of circulating global forces mediated by the "East Asian modern." Sovereignty and AUthenticity not only shows how Manchukuo drew technologies of modern nationbuilding from China and Japan, but it provides a window into how some of these techniques and processes were obscured or naturalized in the more successful East Asian nation-states. With its sweepingly original theoretical and comparative perspectives on nationalism and imperialism, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary history.
 

Contents

Imperialism and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century
9
Manchukuo A Historical Overview
41
CIVILIZATION AND SOVEREIGNTY
87
Asianism and the New Discourse of Civilization
89
Embodying Civilization Women and the Figure of Tradition within Modernity
131
THE AUTHENTICITY OF SPACES
171
Imperial Nationalism and the Frontier
179
Local Worlds The Poetics and Politics of the Native Place
209
Conclusion
245
Glossary of Chinese Terms
257
Glossary of Japanese Terms
265
Bibliography
269
Index
293
About the Author
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About the author (2004)

Prasenjit Duara is professor in the Department of History and professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

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