Rival civilisations the rise of Japan and visions of world order in Britain Chika Tonooka

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tonooka, Chika, 1990- Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japan--Foreign public opinion, British--History--20th century.

Japan.

Great Britain--Intellectual life--20th century.

Great Britain.

Public opinion--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Public opinion.

Eurocentrism--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Eurocentrism.

Civilization.

civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Princeton University Press, 2026.

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton University Press [2026]

Summary:

"How British intellectuals of the twentieth century reckoned with the emergence of an Asian power. Most historians of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe point to the persistence of racialised and hierarchical views of non-Europeans as uncivilised. Yet these accounts overlook the profound intellectual impact of what contemporaries called the awakening of Asia. In Rival Civilisations , Chika Tonooka shows how the rise of Japan after 1905 compelled British intellectuals to rethink fundamental questions about world order and human difference. Juxtaposing Japanese and British sources, Tonooka offers an innovative history of British Eurocentrismits ebbs and flows and emergent pluralist alternativesthrough the lens of British debates on Japan. Tonooka describes how British intellectuals and commentators grappled with such issues as whether civilisation was singular or plural; whether the civilising mission in Asia might be more successfully undertaken as the yellow mans burden; whether non-Christians could be moral; and whether a world converging along Western lines was likely and even desirable. Even at the Empires peak, British thinkers began to grasp that Britain could no longer take its civilisational preeminence for granted. But Tonooka also considers what these debates on Japan missed, arguing that British civilisational discourse consistently overlooked what she demonstrates to be the paradoxical nature of global modernity. As a result, these British blind spots repeatedly foreclosed anticipations of critical world political challenges that lay ahead. Her original and rigorous analysis will enable readers to identify analogous blind spots over the rise of China and its consequences for the global order."--Provided by publisher

Contents:

Introduction. The stakes of rehistoricising Europe The weary Titan looks to hypermodern Japan Japan's special path in the age of global capital The (dis)unity of world history The yellow man's burden and his needs Narrating the Manchurian crisis : what is in crisis? Coda. When war against an Asian power does and does not become a clash of civilisations Conclusion. The world as we narrate it

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-359) and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, August 27, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Tonooka, Chika, 1990- Rival civilisations

ISBN:

9780691271828

0691271828

9780691295916

0691295913

OCLC:

1612239567

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license