The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia Un) by Jeremy A Yellen (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book explores the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan's ambitious wartime attempt to create a new order in East and Southeast Asia"--

Book Synopsis

"The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere offers a lucid, dynamic, and highly readable history of Japan's attempt to usher in a new order in Asia during World War II."

â- Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review

In The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Jeremy A. Yellen exposes the history, politics, and intrigue that characterized the era when Japan's "total empire" met the total war of World War II. He illuminates the ways in which the imperial center and its individual colonies understood the concept of the Sphere, offering two sometimes competing, sometimes complementary, and always intertwined visions--one from Japan, the other from Burma and the Philippines.

Yellen argues that, from 1940 to 1945, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere epitomized two concurrent wars for Asia's future: the first was for a new type of empire in Asia, and the second was a political war, waged by nationalist elites in the colonial capitals of Rangoon and Manila. Exploring Japanese visions for international order in the face of an ever-changing geopolitical situation, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere explores wartime Japan's desire to shape and control its imperial future while its colonies attempted to do the same. At Japan's zenith as an imperial power, the Sphere represented a plan for regional domination; by the end of the war, it had been recast as the epitome of cooperative internationalism. In the end, the Sphere could not survive wartime defeat, and Yellen's lucidly written account reveals much about the desires of Japan as an imperial and colonial power, as well as the ways in which the subdued colonies in Burma and the Philippines jockeyed for agency and a say in the future of the region.

Review Quotes

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere offers a lucid, dynamic, and highly readable history of Japan's attempt to usher in a new order in Asia during World War II.

-- "Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review"

In this outstanding new study of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Jeremy Yellen challenges the longstanding view that the Sphere was little more than a facade for Japan's predatory imperialism and that Asian leaders who collaborated with Japan were traitors to their countries. [E]ssential reading for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Japanese empire and its enduring legacy in Southeast Asia.

-- "Pacific Historical Review"

No English-language monographs have [yet] explored the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere--Japan's wartime effort to impose a new regional order--from the vantage point of Japanese high policy. Jeremy Yellen has admirably filled this gap, offering innovative insights into Japan's abortive effort to redefine the international relations of East and Southeast Asia from the late 1930s to 1945.

-- "Global Asia"

The author's insights, based on extensive research, add depth to understanding of Japan's wartime decision-making process while also correcting misreadings of the role played by its erstwhile collaborators in Burma and the Philippines

-- "Choice"

We had to wait forty-four years, but Yellen's The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War was worth the wait. In his masterful account regarding the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Yellen argues that it was nothing more than 'a failed dream'--an incoherent vision that was contested and an idea that never coalesced into a coherent policy that could be enacted.

-- "Journal of Asian Studies"

With his excellent command of Japanese and use of rich Japanese sources, Yellen reveals the ambivalence evident in Japan's policy making and implementation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

-- "Southeast Asian Studies"

Yellen describes in his deep empirical analysis, showing mastery of the archival record in Japan and the long stretch of Japanese secondary scholarship, how Japan was attempting to shape its own new world order. The delicious banquet that [he] serves up is the complex and at times completely incongruous definition of the sphere.

-- "Journal of Japanese Studies"

Yellen offers a useful examination of the changing and contested meaning of Japan's proclaimed 'Co-Prosperity Sphere.' [His] work helps inform about an important but opaque aspect of World War II history that influenced the receding of Asian empires after that war.

-- "Journal of Military History"

Yellen's study is a welcome step toward a fuller understanding of GEACPS led by international scholars on a truly global basis.

-- "Pacific Affairs"

About the Author

Jeremy A. Yellen is Associate Professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.