The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War by S.C.M. Paine, and: To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan's Meiji Restoration in World History by Mark Ravina (review)

Japan underwent tremendous economic, military, political, and cultural transformations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Scholars of Japanese history and world historians who study Japan are involved in a process of intense debate about modern Japanese history, in an attempt to dissect how Japan made the transition to modernity. The process of that transitional period, between tradition and modernity, and how Japan emerged from the transition as a completely changed nation, and as a fully-fledged imperial state, is a main consideration in both of these very riveting studies. A common question addressed in both of these books is the degree to which the Japanese leadership, including the emperor himself, as well as the Meiji oligarchs or the later Diet party leaders and members of the imperial council, military leaders, were orchestrators of the changes which took place in the country. What drove the overall architecture of historical change in Japan, especially in terms of the planning of empire and military development? And did the other myriad changes which occurred during the Meiji era happen as a result of deliberate internal planning, or was it a natural outgrowth from an era of increasing international contacts, or a combination of the two factors?

S.C.M. Paine of the United States Naval War College argues that Japan's modernization project in the Meiji involved a deliberate westernization of the country, which she contrasts with Qing China's self-strengthening movement, which rejected westernization (p. 6). This had major consequences for the immediate futures of both nations. Meiji Japan developed rapidly towards a militarized and industrialized nation, while the Qing's economic and military development was minimal at best. This split in pathways for the two nations was a major contributing factor to conflict between the two in the first Sino-Japanese War. Paine writes that, "Japan took a U-turn on the road to civilization when it traded in sinification for westernization and the Chinese have never gotten over it" (p. 7). These deliberate choices also resulted in a relatively easy victory for Japan in the war because, "Japan westernized, China did not, and there were consequences" (p. 15). This was reflected in the enormous technological disparity between the two nations at the time, in which Japan's infrastructure was extensive, and China's was not, because, according to Paine, "Railways disrupt fengshui …" (p. 24). Paine found that the break which took place between the two nations in their attitude towards westernization has created an over one century long "downward spiral" of relations "from which … neither country has emerged" (p. 42).

A strength of The Japanese Empire is its attention to the details of the many military campaigns which Japan has fought since the Meiji period. She includes chapters which are titled "The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895)," "The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)," "The Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1941)," and what she calls "The General Asian War (1941–1945)."¹ Each chapter describes military strategy, outcomes of particular battles, underlying and proximate causes, and complex discussions of the intersection of military planning and international relations theory. For military historians, this book will be especially useful, especially since Paine has also effectively integrated source materials from Japanese historians.

The intellectual scale of the book is immense, and Paine moves seamlessly from detailed discussions of battlefield tactics to larger strategic concerns of the military and the government. One of the major arguments she makes is that the Japanese leadership faced a tough strategic decision as to whether pursue its military strategy and relations from the standpoint of...