Japanese Society at War: Death, Memory and the Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was the first international conflict of the twentieth century. This innovative study analyses the war from the perspective of its impact on Japanese society and sheds new light on its implications for modern Japan. What did the war mean to the Japanese people and how did they respond to it? Naoko Shimazu presents a fascinating insight into the attitudes of ordinary Japanese people towards the war through the use of diaries, letters and contemporary images. She argues that sources of power and forces of social and cultural change did not emanate solely from the authority of the state downwards to the people. She shows instead that there was a much more complex relationship between the Japanese state and society which involved implicit negotiations of diverse interests in which popular agency played a crucial role.