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Distributed for National University of Singapore Press

The Philippines and Japan in America’s Shadow

Japan and the Philippines both spent part of the twentieth century under American rule, and the experience left an indelible imprint on both societies. Conventional wisdom suggests that American rule in the Philippines, while clearly a form of colonialism, was mitigated by American reluctance to be a colonial power and by early steps to transfer government functions to Filipinos. Similarly, the American occupation of Japan is understood to represent a necessary transitional phase between autocracy and democracy. The authors in this volume examine the issue from a wide range of perspectives (political science, history, anthropology, sociology and literature), and they suggest a different interpretation. American colonialism shows distinct characteristics of latecomer-colonialism, starting with the strong role of the state and the primacy of geopolitics. In contrast with other imperial powers, such as Britain, France and Japan, the Americans relied more on informal empire than on direct control of territory, an approach that suited an era when colonialism as such was increasingly difficult to defend. America’s relations with the Philippines and with Japan after 1945, often seen as laying the foundations of a post-colonial system, were in fact the prototype of a world order based in part on latecomer-colonialism.

352 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2011

Asian Studies: East Asia, Southeast Asia and Australia

History: American History

Political Science: Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, and International Relations


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Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
            The Tale of Two Empires: Japan and the US as Latecomers in Colonialism
            Kiichi Fujiwara

Part I              Empires and Nation-Building
1                      The Philippines and US Imperial Identity
                        Julian Go
2                      Wars with the US and Japan, and the Politics of History in the Philippines
                        Reynaldo C. Ileto
3                      American Impact on Elite Continuity in Post-War Japan and the Philippines
                        Temario C. Rivera

Part II             Images of Nations and Nationalism
4                      The Japanese Analogy as Liminal Crisis-Effect in Initial Filipino-American Encounters, 1898-1899
                        Oscar V. Campomanes
5                      Japan and America in the Filipino Nationalist Imagination: From Rizal to Ricarte
                        Floro C. Quibuyen
6                      On the Same Terrain of Colonial Modernity: The Mystification of Jose Rizal and the Symbolization of Japanese Emperor
                        Yoshiko Nagano
7                      Memory and Mourning: Six Decades after the Two Wars
                        Satoshi Nakano

Part III           Triangle Encounters — The Philippines, Japan and the USA
8                      Baguio’s Early 20th-Century Japanese Community: Culture, Society, and Work in an American “Hill Station” in the Philippines
                        Patricia O. Afable
9                      Competing Shadows: Japan and the USA in the Filipino American Imagination
                        Augusto Espiritu
10                    Singing of Modernity and US Shadow: Bodily Aesthetics and Ideology in Salidummay and Shoka
                        Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes
11                    Love Triangles: Filipinos, Japanese, and the Shifting Locations of American Power
                        Nobue Suzuki
12                    Refiguring Identities in an Ifugao Village: Sketches of Joint Projects from a Filipino Filmmaker, a Native Intellectual, and a Japanese Anthropologist under                              American Shadow(s)
                        Hiromu Shimizu

Bibliography
Contributors
Index

 

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