Organizations to bridge the Pacific : the Japan Society, the Carnegie Endowment, and Japanese-American cultural internationalism, 1912-1931

Abstract

In Japanese-American relations, much historical research has been undertaken on factors perceived to have caused the Pacific War. These include studies on the collapse of Japanese interwar democracy, treatments of American immigration restriction and racism, and wider geopolitical rivalries within Asia and the Pacific. However, while valuable, such studies can paint a deceptive picture of events by casting the war in highly deterministic terms as the “inevitable” outcome of longstanding national grievances. This thesis offers an alternative narrative of Japanese-American relations centered around the study of two nongovernmental internationalist organizations—the Japan Society of New York and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace—which sought to improve understanding between both nations. In doing so, it offers an intellectual history of the (often discounted) internationalist movement as it applied to Japan, explores the mentalities of its constituent members, and examines the nature of the disapproval leveled against both organizations by critics.