In <i>Beyond the Metropolis</i>, Louise Young looks at the emergence of urbanism in the interwar period, a global moment when the material and ideological structures that constitute «the city» took their characteristic modern shape. In Japan, as elsewhere, cities became the staging ground for wide ranging social, cultural, economic, and political transformations. The rise of social problems, the formation of a consumer marketplace, the proliferation of streetcars and streetcar...
In this first social and cultural history of Japan's construction of Manchuria, Louise Young offers an incisive examination of the nature of Japanese imperialism. Focusing on the domestic impact of Japan's activities in Northeast China between 1931 and 1945, Young considers «metropolitan effects» of empire building: how people at home imagined and experienced the empire they called Manchukuo.<br /><br />Contrary to the conventional assumption that a few army officers and...