Japan on Display: Photography and the Emperor

The Emperor Hirohito is central to the history of modern Japan, but he is inexplicably missing from the history of Japanese science. This book is an attempt to put the Emperor back into that history by exploring the linkages between science, photography and the Emperor. It examines aspects of Emperor Hirohitos life, especially his scientific career and his imperial tours that are seldom discussed in the literature. The book incorporates an array of sources including collections of old photographs, Occupation-period archival documents, and Japanese language sources to argue that science and photography helped reinvent the emperor and the nation. Covering a period of over a hundred years, from the Meiji period through to the Emperors death in 1989, this book presents a fresh and compelling account of how visual imagery made the Emperor and the Japanese nation visible.

Morris Low is Professor of East Asian Sciences and Technology at Johns Hopkins University