I am just finishing up a graduate seminar on the Japanese Empire where we read a book a week for 15 weeks, and have noticed some trends in Anglophone/English-language writing on Japan's empire.

First, there is a general tendency among authors to engage only with Anglophone scholarship. Granted, many do make an effort to use Japanese scholarship to highlight important points. But there is less of an attempt to engage in dialogue with our Japanese counterparts. 2/

In the process, much of the best and most original Japanese scholarship is lost in the ether, so to speak. Equally importantly, it is less likely that our work will be noticed by Japanese scholars, with whom we should be making a more active engagement. 3/

Second, scholarship is lazily US-centric, in that the U.S. audience is the only one that matters. This pops up in many ways. But the most apparent is the way in which authors use “Pearl Harbor” as a shorthand for the opening of hostilities against Britain and America. 4/

Pearl Harbor was not the only attack of December 7/8, 1941. And historians know this. So why do we engage in such laziness and refer to the attacks of December 7/8 as Pearl Harbor? Far more impactful was the attack on Malaya, and the fall of Singapore (Feb. 1942). 5/

Pearl Harbor alone was not attacked. The first wave of attacks was on the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaya, Guam, Wake Island, AND Hawaii. This was followed shortly by an attack on North Borneo, Burma, and other areas. 6/

Incidentally, I have noticed this with other types of scholarship on Japan, in which the guiding question often seems to be, “Why isn’t Japan more like us?”

Perhaps this isn't the best research question. 7/

Third, maps. When you use maps, please be sure that they are historically accurate. More than half the maps I saw on the wartime Japanese Empire have China’s contemporary borders. This neglects the fact that Tibet was independent between 1913 and 1950. 8/

We need to show as much attention to the maps we use as to the sources and our analyses. Otherwise, it feels sloppy. 9/

Okay, that's all for now. Rant ended. end/