Japan and Germany in the Modern World / Edition 1

by Bernd Martin

Overview

First study of the fascinating parallelism that characterizes developments in Japan and Germany by one of Germany's leading Japan specialists.

With the founding of their respective national states, the Meiji Empire in 1869 and the German Reich in 1871, Japan and Germany entered world politics. Since then both countries have developed in strikingly similar ways, and it is not surprising that these two became close allies during the Second World War, although in the end this proved a "fatal attraction."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845450472
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	12/01/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Bernd Martin is Professor of History at the University of Freiburg.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Fatal Affinities: the German Role in the Modernization of Japan in the Early Meiji Period (1868-1895) and its Aftermath
Chapter 2. Japan during the World Economic Crisis: Big Business and Social Unrest
Chapter 3. Three Forms of Fascism: Japan - Italy - Germany
Chapter 4. Germany and Pearl Harbor
Chapter 5. The German Japanese Alliance in the Second World War
Chapter 6. The Pacific War and the Twentieth Century

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

In ten articles written and mostly published between 1977 and 1994, Martin (modern history, U. of Freiburg) explains that the similarities between Japan and Germany go back nearly to the foundation of the two national states, in 1869 and 1871 respectively. He documents how after trying several other approaches, the Japanese adopted the Prusso-German model of modernization, and restructured the constitution, government administration, the legal and education systems, the army, and finally the social system. They both recovered from the depression of the 1930s by armament production and supra- nationalist ideology, and were then natural allies by the time World War II began. He traces their continuing parallel development through the postwar era to the present. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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