Memory Maps : The State and Manchuria in Postwar Japan

"Memory Maps tells the story of both the promise of a utopia and the tragic aftermath of its failure. An anthropologist, Tamanoi approaches her investigation of Manchuria's colonization and collapse as a complex "history of the present," which in postcolonial studies refers to the examination of popular memory of past colonial relations of power. To mitigate this complexity, she has created four "memory maps" that draw on the recollections of former Japanese settlers, their children who were left in China and later repatriated, and Chinese who lived under Japanese rule in Manchuria." "This book contributes not only to the empirical study of the Japanese empire and its effects on the daily lives of Japanese and Chinese, but also to postcolonial theory as it applied to the use of memory."--BOOK JACKET.