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Summary

Exhibitions suggest a more complicated history than the familiar caricature of early twentieth-century Japan, which sees the country sliding inexorably into authoritarianism from the late 1920s, then embracing peace and democracy in 1945. The military had always been present at exhibitions and became more prominent in the 1930s. Wartime exhibitions did what they could to mobilize the Japanese people for ‘national defense’. Overseas, however, the government continued to use exhibitions to convince the world of its pacific intent. At home, exhibitions testify as much to commercial energy, municipal ambition, and colonial aspirations, as to militarism. This chapter explores the complicated, increasingly contradictory weave of war and peace during the 1930s and 1940s. Exhibitions not only articulated the need to expand empire and mobilize the nation but also continued to insist on the possibility of international amity and modern life, even as Japan descended into total war. Once it was over, peace and democracy became new keynotes, but the sites, protagonists, and ambitions of exhibitions remained much the same.

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5 - War and Peace

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5 - War and Peace

Summary