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This week, I'm going to recommend Race and Reunion, The Civil War in American Memory, by David W. Blight.

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As I said last week, I think there's a lot about reconstruction that explains where the United States is in terms of race relations today.

So, this book really is very timely.

Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim your copy.

Thank you. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 345, Blackness in Japan, Part 3.

By 1919, it was pretty indisputable that Japan was among the great powers of the world.

It had a growing colonial empire, the hallmark of any great power during this time,

stretching from its zone of influence in southern Manchuria down to the Micronesian Islands it had seized from

Germany. It had an alliance with the United Kingdom, the world's preeminent power even after

four years of grueling war. And most importantly, it was one of two nations to come out of the chaos of World

War I, indisputably better off than it went in. Japan had not taken the devastating losses in

manpower or material that European powers like France or Britain had. It did not see its government

implode the way the monarchies of Russia and Germany did.

Indeed, the Japanese experience of World War I was more than anything about getting rich,

...