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through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open
Access publishing program. Visit
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Placing Empire examines the spatial politics of Japanese
imperialism through a study of Japanese travel and tourism to
Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan between the late nineteenth century
and the early 1950s. In a departure from standard histories of
Japan, this book shows how debates over the role of colonized lands
reshaped the social and spatial imaginary of the modern Japanese
nation and how, in turn, this sociospatial imaginary affected the
ways in which colonial difference was conceptualized and enacted.
The book thus illuminates how ideas of place became central to the
production of new forms of colonial hierarchy as empires around the
globe transitioned from an era of territorial acquisition to one of
territorial maintenance.