In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire : Imperial Violence, State Destruction, and the Reordering of Modern East Asia /
In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire concludes that early East Asian Cold War history needs to be studied within the framework of post-imperial history. Japan's surrender did not mean that the Japanese and former imperial subjects would immediately disavow imperial ideology. The end of the Japan...
Saved in:
| Other Authors / Creators: | Kushner, Barak, 1968- editor. Levidis, Andrew, editor. |
|---|---|
| Format: | eBook Electronic |
| Language: | English |
| Imprint: | Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, [2020] |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Click here for full text at JSTOR |
| Summary: | In the Ruins of the Japanese Empire concludes that early East Asian Cold War history needs to be studied within the framework of post-imperial history. Japan's surrender did not mean that the Japanese and former imperial subjects would immediately disavow imperial ideology. The end of the Japanese empire unleashed unprecedented destruction and violence on the periphery. Lives were destroyed; names of cities altered; collaborationist regimes--which for over a decade dominated vast populations--melted into the air as policeman, bureaucrats, soldiers, and technocrats offered their services as nationalists, revolutionaries or communists. Power did not simply change hands swiftly and smoothly. In the chaos of the new order, legal anarchy, revenge, ethnic displacement, and nationalist resentments stalked the postcolonial lands of northeast Asia, intensifying bloody civil wars in societies radicalized by total war, militarization, and mass mobilization. Kushner and Levidis's volume follows these processes as imperial violence reordered demographics and borders, and involved massive political, economic, and social dislocation as well as stubborn continuities. From the hunt for "traitors" in Korea and China to the brutal suppression of the Taiwanese by the Chinese Nationalist government in the long-forgotten February 28 Incident, the research shows how the empire's end acted as a catalyst for renewed attempts at state-building. From the imperial edge to the metropole, investigations shed light on how prewar imperial values endured during postwar Japanese rearmament and in party politics. Nevertheless, many Japanese actively tried to make amends for wartime transgressions and rebuild Japan's posture in East Asia by cultivating religious and cultural connections Any traditional theatre has to engage the changing world to avoid becoming a living fossil. How has Beijing opera -- a highly stylized theatre with breath-taking acrobatics and martial arts, fabulous costumes, and striking makeup -- survived into the new millennium while coping with a century of great upheavals and competition from new entertainment forms? Li Ruru's The Soul of Beijing Opera answers that question, looking at the evolution of singing and performance styles, make-up and costume, audience demands, as well as stage and street presentation modes amid tumultuous social and political changes. --Li's study follows a number of major artists' careers in mainland China and Taiwan, drawing on extensive primary print sources as well as personal interviews with performers and their cultural peers. One chapter focuses on the illustrious career of Li's own mother and how she adapted to changes in Communist ideology. In addition, she explores how performers as social beings have responded to conflicts between tradition and modernity, and between convention and innovation. Through performers' negotiation and compromises, Beijing opera has undergone constant re-examination of its inner artistic logic and adjusted to the demands of the external world. --Li Ruru is senior lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds. She is the author of Shashibiya: Staging Shakespeare in China.---- |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on June 18, 2020). |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (vi, 246 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9789882206571 9882206573 |