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This week, I'm going to recommend Cultures of War by John Dower.

Dr. Dower is one of the towering figures of Japanese history, and even when you disagree with him on a point or two,

it's hard not to be swept away by his knowledge of his subject and his skill at writing.

This is Dower's magnum opus, in which he attempts to draw together diverse topics

related to what he sees as the grand themes of modern warfare.

The result is truly spectacular.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to try it out for yourself. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 92, The Dragon and the Rising Sun, Part 2.

Last week, we set the stage of Chinese history over the course of its last imperial dynasty.

This week, we're going to move into how that terminally faltering dynasty managed its relationship with its formerly insignificant neighbors in Japan.

The Japanese perception of China in the decades following the Meiji restoration can be split

roughly into two viewpoints.

On the one hand, during the early decades of the Meiji period, the impulse to westernize reigned supreme.

Everything old was bad, everything new was good.

China, as the fundamental source of more or less everything

that was old in Japanese culture, was viewed by some intellectuals as completely backward

and beyond saving. On the other hand, there were some who viewed China with hope. They noted

an interest in modernization among the Qing leadership after the Taiping rebellion,

and believed that China would shortly follow Japan's path in reforming along western lines,

using their emperor as a rallying point, much as the Japanese emperor had been used.

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