“The National Humiliation Narrative: Dealing with the Present by Fixating on the Past”

By Mark Metcalf

Fall 2020

• Key terms: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Political Science, World History, international relations, historiography
• Best for: high school, college
• Article type: research

The author, a specialist on China with experience in the US armed forces and government agencies, discusses the emergence and continuing reliance on an official “national humiliation” narrative of Chinese history by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in support of China’s national domestic and international goals. This essay considers the narrative’s efficacy as a state tool of validation for the CCP’s Chinese Communist Party’s own political legitimacy and foreign policy decision making. Metcalf asserts that for the past decade or more, this narrative has been refined by the CCP into a highly nationalistic historical narrative that emphasizes past injustices inflicted by foreign powers on China. The PRC government, in turn, has used this interpretation “to justify severe responses to foreign actions that it perceives as violations of its sovereignty or insults to the Chinese people.” The author begins with a brief discussion of what he defines as the “traditional” Chinese history narrative. He moves to a consideration of the CCP’s “humiliation” narrative and then considers how this narrative was employed in developing the “Chinese Dream” ideology disseminated by the Xi government in the early 2000s. Finally, he applies his argument to international relations case studies of the first decades of the 21^st century: Hong Kong, Taiwan, PRC territorial claims, the South China Sea, and “Insults to the Chinese People.”

“Challenging the Textbook to Develop Historical Thinking: Inquiry Lessons on the Mongol Invasions and Meiji Japan”

By Catherine Mein

Winter 2018

• Key terms: Japan, historiography, world history, Meiji Japan, Mongol invasions
• Best for: Middle school, high school
• Article type: pedagogy, curriculum, instruction

While US history textbooks have improved over the past decades to offer more varied sources and previously neglected voices, they typically present a nation’s dominant narrative. Moreover, the process of developing textbooks in the United States necessarily means that textbooks cannot keep up with, or efficiently integrate, emerging scholarship. Given these realities, teaching students how to assess a textbook’s narrative is not only a key historical thinking skill, but also a practical exercise in understanding historiography and “doing” history. Historian Catherine Mein offers two case studies for engaging students with new scholarship that challenges textbook narratives–the 13th-century Mongol invasions of Japan and the 19^th-century Meiji Restoration. As Mein notes, “In both cases, the “usual story” that can be found in many world history textbooks has been challenged by more recent scholarship. For Mein’s high school classroom, challenging textbook coverage of both the Mongol invasions and the Meiji Restoration shaped compelling historical inquiry. For each case study, Mein describes classroom objectives and procedures that begin with an introductory question that possible alternative narrative to the textbook and launches students into their own historical research into primary and secondary sources.

“Debating the Allied Occupation of Japan (Part One)”

By Peter K. Frost

Fall 2016

• Key terms: Japan, United States, American History, World History, historiography  
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, instruction

The Occupation of Japan (1945-52), under the administration of the US Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) has been a controversial history for decades. Several ground-breaking works have contested the US narrative of this chapter of history, none more so than John Dower’s seminal work, Embracing Defeat. In this article, historian Peter Frost tackles three specific issues or decisions for discussing the controversies and competing perspectives of the Occupation, its administration, policies, and enduring impacts. These topics are 1) maintaining the emperor; 2) assigning guilt; and 3) outlawing war. As Frost notes, these topics are still the source of contemporary debates. Each of these issues opens up a rich opportunity for students to engage in the construction of historical knowledge by examining resources, weighing conflicting information, and diverse perspectives, and synthesizing information. Frost’s article guides the way for exploring the Occupation in the classroom.

“History Lost in the Shuffle”

By Alexis Dudden

Fall 2014

• Key terms: China, Japan, Taiwan, United States, Northeast Asia, Geography, Cartography, International Relations, World History, Political Science, historiography
• Best for: secondary, post-secondary
• Article type: research

The countries of East Asia are embroiled in several territorial disputes that revolve around the complex interplay of regional and national histories, competing claims, international law, and contested cartographies. Historian Alexis Dudden considers the Senkaku (Japan)/Diaoyu(China) Islands as a case study in point, situating that island controversy within history, geography, and resource interests to illustrate how and why international tensions developed over these territories and how they threaten regional and international relations in the 21^st century.

“Maritime Southeast Asia: Not Just a Crossroads”

By Jennifer L. Gaynor

Fall 2014

• Key terms: Southeast Asia, world history, global history, global networks, Africa, Europe, maritime Asia, trade, cultural transmission, international relations, historiography
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, pedagogy, curriculum, instruction

Southeast Asia’s reputation as a crossroads is anchored in histories of trade and empire, which play important roles in the study of the region. But in recent decades, research in Southeast Asian source materials raises the need to explore additional themes and approaches. Investigation of Southeast Asian sources is vital to countering scholars who, by neglecting or underutilizing such sources, narrativize the region as dominated by the actions of outsiders. In particular, the author notes two shifts in scholarly trends have impacted the study of maritime Southeast Asia’s history: “a turn from nation-bound frameworks to studies of networks and a move from analysing cultures using a patchwork model toward analyses of practice and meaning among interpretive communities or “publics.” This essay is designed to guide “history teachers in understanding why the region’s portrayal as a crossroads can be a double-edged sword, demonstrate the importance of the two shifts in scholarship, and offer constructive suggestions for how to show students what is “maritime” in the history of maritime Southeast Asia.”

“Teaching the Cultural Revolution in China: Contested Pasts and Public History”

By Georgina Clinton

Spring 2014

• Key terms: China, world History, historiography, Cultural revolution
• Best for: post-secondary
• Article type: pedagogy, instruction

This essay describes a module within a first-year college course entitled “History and Historians.” The goal of the course is to engage students in inquiry around important debates concerning historical truth and “contested pasts” using case studies. The author notes, “the module encourages students to question both academic and public history. Students examine the influences at work on historians and come to a greater understanding of why people have different points of view.” In addition to the Cultural Revolution, the course considers the Crusades, slavery, the Holocaust and other cases to teach students how to approach and discuss controversial historical topics. A syllabus, topics, themes, discussion questions, and guidelines for a final project focused on the Cultural Revolution are provided.

“Approaching Hiroshima: Three Ways to Engage with History”

By Lynn R. Dole

Spring 2006

• Key terms: Japan, United States, American history, world history, historiography, World War II; multiple perspectives, Pacific War
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: pedagogy, curriculum, instruction

Author’s introduction: “How can educators today teach about Hiroshima in a manner that is historically accurate and consistent with recent scholarly findings? In this article I suggest three such approaches: examining the historiography of the US decision to use the bomb, evaluating the interaction of popular perceptions and scholarship in museum exhibits in United States and Japan, and exploring what happened “under the mushroom cloud” through a number of perspectives. These are not mutually exclusive alternatives; they can complement existing lessons while also introducing multiple voices and engaging students in thinking about the construction of historical understanding.” This well-researched article offers resources and student readings to support each of the three pedagogical approaches.

“What We Forget When We Remember the Pacific War”

By Owen Griffiths

Spring 2006

• Key terms: Japan, Northeast Asia, American history, Education, world History, historiography, World War II, Pacific War
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, pedagogy, instruction

The author discusses the problems intrinsic to writing history, a selective process that necessarily involves choosing to include or omit information, “driven by numerous factors” including the emergence and availability of evidence and professional and political biases of the historian.  As a result, he writes, “While the past remains unchanged, our narratives about the past ––history— and the methods that drive them––historiography––increase at such a dizzying pace that even professional historians have difficulty keeping up-to-date.” To teach history effectively, and to ensure students understand the nature of history, the subject should be taught as a reciprocal process of remembering and forgetting. The author analyzes three examples of the relationship between remembering and forgetting in the construction of historical narrative: 1) the Japanese textbook controversy of 2005; 2) the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and 3) how remembrances of war generally focus on dying, not killing. He has chosen each case as a vivid example of how some stories are forgotten and how these examples offer opportunities for students to engage with historiography by analyzing motivations and consequences of privileging some stories over others.

“Asia in the ReMaking of the Modern World”

By Robert B. Marks

Fall 2006

• Key terms: Eurocentrism, historical narratives, revisionist history, historiography, Western history, global history, world history, multiple perspectives, cultural transmission
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, pedagogy, curriculum

This article outlines principal arguments in the contemporary intellectual debate on the relative roles of the West and “the rest” in the development of the modern world. Marks introduces the basics of this debate by introducing the “usual story of the modern world,” which rests on a narrative of “the Rise of the West” or “the European miracle.” He then focuses on the essence of the debate by posing the questions, “What if this whole way of looking at the making of the modern world—’the rise of the West’ and the spread of its system on the basis of its supposed superiority to the rest of the world—is wrong? That is the possibility raised in a body of recent scholarship on Asia by a group of scholars dubbed the “California school.” Marks notes that this new scholarship has challenged historians to rethink long-accepted understandings and the story of modern world history and to “rightsize” Asia and the rest of the world in that story. He elaborates on these challenges to established historical interpretations by considering four ground-breaking books of the 1990s: R. Bin Wong’s China Transformed (1997); André Gunder Frank’s ReOrient (1998); James Lee and Wang Feng’s One-Quarter of Humanity (1999), and Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence (2000). In all, Asia or China figure prominently in the story of the modern world. The debate over these two narratives, laid out in this article, is critical. It raises the fundamental question for instructors of how to frame the study of world history and reposition Asia within that narrative. At the same time, the debate constitutes a real, contemporary case study to engage students in an inquiry and analysis of nature of history.

“EAA Interview with Herbert P. Bix, 2001 Pulitzer Winner: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan”

By Kathleen Krauth

Fall 2005

• Key terms: Japan, biography, international relations, World History, historiography World War II, Pacific War.
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, curriculum

In this interview about his groundbreaking work, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2000), Bix discusses his own research, which challenges the dominant postwar narrative that emerged in both Japan and the United States of Emperor Hirohito’s limited role in and responsibility for Japan’s “Greater East Asia War” of 1937-1945. Bix discusses the American post-war policy decisions to maintain the emperor and construct a narrative of his non-involvement in wartime policies while also emphasizing the critical and enduring repercussions of these decisions to forget or erase Hirohito’s role. This is a powerful interview that can serve to introduce classroom teachers and students to decision, and later history, that remains highly contested and continues to impact Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbors and the world.

“Once and Future Warriors: The Samurai in Japanese History”

By Karl Friday

Winter 2005

• Key terms: Japan, historiography, visual arts, world history, comparative history
• Best for: middle school, high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, instruction

Historian Karl Friday notes that the topic of Japanese medieval samurai inspires “a veritable Mt. Fuji of misperceptions and misinformation.” This article tackles these “mis”es and provides scholarship-based narratives of the samurai through Japanese history. Newer scholarship has dispelled the convenient comparison of conditions in medieval Japan and those of northwestern Europe that is still found in some texts and still taught in many elementary and secondary classrooms. In these pervasive comparisons, samurai and daimyo are equated with knights and barons. In such comparisons, an understanding of samurai is predicated on conceptions of how European knights and their lords had come to be. This is a don’t-miss article for any educator currently teaching that the samurai are “just like” European knights and that Japan had a period of development “just like” European feudalism.

“Another Look at the Occupation of Japan: Through the Minefields of Japanese History”

By George Packard

• Key terms: References: Japan, United States, international relations, political science, World history, historiography
• Best for: High school, postsecondary
• Article type: Research  

This article examines the goals and policies of the US Occupation of Japan through the lenses of two “diametrically opposed interpretations” of 17^th-20^th century Japanese history, one posited by Edwin O. Reischauer and the other by E. Herbert Norman. Noting that that there remains no consensus among scholars about the 100 plus years leading to World War II or the success of the Occupation, George Packard provides a brief lesson in historiography by comparing Reischauer’s and Norman’s narratives of the Tokugawa, Meiji, and Taisho periods. He then discusses why the American architects chose to work from historical evidence as presented by Reischauer to construct the Occupation policies most likely to achieve its goals of “demilitarization” and “democratization.” In the concluding section of this essay, Packard considers several key measures of Occupation policy, with the hindsight of the early 21^st century and more recent research by historians including John Dower and Herbert Bix.

“Using the Concept ‘Feudalism’ to Compare Japan with Europe: Words of Caution”

By Diana Marston Wood

Winter 2000

Key terms: Japan, European history, world history, comparative history, historiography
Best for: middle school, high school
Article type: research, pedagogy, instruction

This article addresses the applicability of the term feudalism to explore the history of Tokugawa Japan (1608-1867) with students The articles covers similar issues to Karl Friday’s article. What is particularly noteworthy about this essay is that the author, Diana M Wood, discusses these concepts in the context of her own continuing research and commitment to revising her instruction for secondary students and inservice teachers. She reflects on a unit of study she had developed during her high school teaching, for which she later learned that her comparisons of European feudalism and Japan’s Tokugawa order were questionable in light of cutting-edge scholarship. Wood then provides a brief review of research on feudalism as a concept developed to explain a phase of Western European development and whether that term accurately describes what was happening in Tokugawa Japan. The process by which Wood reflects on her own teaching, undertakes further research, and modifies her own instruction offers a valuable case study for classroom teachers and students highlighting the dynamic and evolving nature of history and the imperative to continuously re-examine narratives and revise instruction.

“America’s Hiroshima: Culture Wars and the Classroom”

By Leo Maley III, Uday Mohan

Fall 1997

• Key terms: Japan, United States, American History, cultural Studies, international relations, political science, World History, historiography
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, curriculum, instruction

Written in 1996, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings, this article discusses a semester-long, undergraduate course that investigated the highly contested narratives of the American decision to drop A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The authors contextualize the discussion of this course with a preliminary consideration of evolving historiography from the immediate post-war narratives of the decision to drop the bombs to conflicting evidence from emerging scholarship of the later 20^th century questioning the rationale and necessity of these bombings. The authors further contextualize the course within the now in/famous decision by the US Air and Space Museum to cancel an anniversary exhibition offering multiple narratives of atomic bombing decision and its impacts. The detailed course description provides guidance for those wishing to explore this controversy or develop a course. It should be noted that due to the age of this article, more recent scholarship should be added to the resources provided in this article.

“Historical Inquiry and the Public Memory”

By Robert David Johnson

Spring 1996

• Key terms: Japan, United States, international relations, political science, world history, historiography, World War II, Pacific War
• Best for: secondary, post-secondary
• Article type: Research, pedagogy, instruction

Written in the aftermath of the Enola Gay exhibit controversy in 1995, this article first provides a very useful review of the literature and research on the American decision to drop the atomic bombs to end World War II from the immediate postwar narratives to new scholarship of the late 20^th century. It discusses the polarization and politicization of conflicting narratives and the role of the media in institutionalizing a public understanding of the decision to drop the bomb separate from, and sometimes in conflict with, research findings. The article challenges teachers to engage students with just such contested histories to help students recognize that our understanding of historical events evolves as historians ask new questions, interrogate new evidence, and apply new analyses. The article offers pedagogical strategies for addressing conflicting research and narratives as classroom inquiry as well as guiding students to analyze and understand differences between “scholarly history” and public memory.

“The Small Islands Debate: Exploring Critical Controversies in Maritime East Asia”

By Patrick Grant

Winter 2018

• Key terms: China, Japan, Northeast Asia, international relations, geography, political science, world history, geopolitics, cartography
• Best for: middle school, high school, introductory college courses
• Article type: pedagogy, instruction

Beginning with a compelling rationale for including discussion of contested territories in East Asia in the curriculum, author Patrick Grant provides a detailed overview of a classroom debate project, providing several models for setting up and conducting the debate.

“China, Global History, and the Sea: Pedagogical Perspectives and Applications”

By Eugenio Menegon, Eytan Goldstein, Grant Rhode, Robert Murowchik, Thomas Kennelly, and William Grimes

Fall 2020

Key terms: China, Maritime Asia, world history, geography, globalization, pedagogy, historiography, comparative history
Best for: high school, post-secondary
Article type: research, curriculum, pedagogy, instruction

Recent scholarship on maritime history offers alternative narratives to the history of land-based exchange and interaction that characterizes most world and Asian history textbooks. These narratives expand understanding of Asian regional and global relations and cultural transmission, bringing Asia into greater focus and centrality in world-history narratives. The six contributors to this article each offer a rationale for inclusion of maritime Asian history in secondary and college courses and outline case studies that, collectively, provide a tool kit for educators wanting to expand perspectives and narratives of Asia in their history, geography, and global studies courses. 

“The Senkaku Islands and Japan’s Evolving Diplomacy”

By Sheila A. Smith

Fall 2014

• Key terms: Japan, Northeast Asia, international relations, geography, political science, world history, geopolitics
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research

East Asian policy specialist Sheila Smith outlines the origins and evolution of the sovereignty dispute over the islands known as the Senkaku (Japan), Diaoyu (PRC), or Tiaoyu (Taiwan) islands, bringing that dispute up to the publication of this article in 2014.  The article devotes sections to the Japan-PRC dispute, two conflicts in 2010 and 2012, and implications looking ahead from the vantage point of 2014.

“The Selden Map and the Archipelagos of East and Southeast Asia”

By Robert Batchelor

Fall 2014

• Key terms: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, cartography, geopolitics, historiography, Maritime Asia
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, instruction

In 2008, while researching in the archives of Oxford University’s library, the author “rediscovered” the earliest surviving Chinese map made by maritime merchants. The map, known as the Selden Map, is a “beautifully painted, approximately three-by-five, early seventeenth-century wall map of East Asia” that includes carefully drawn shipping routes ranging from Nagasaki down to Aceh in Sumatra. The map has provided a rich tool for research on maritime Asia that questions dominant narratives of land-based interactions. As such, it also opens the door for teachers to engage their students in “doing history” by conducting research, positing hypothesis and synthesizing details into counternarratives to their textbook presentations of world and regional histories. As Batchelor writes, “Using it in a classroom gives students the chance to play the role of historians, coming upon a newly discovered global treasure with fresh eyes. Moreover, because it shows a trading system connecting almost one hundred locations outside of China, it opens up a number of relevant questions for teaching the whole scope of maritime East Asia.” The article includes classroom teaching ideas and illustrations.

“Maritime Crossroads of Geopolitics in East Asia: A Reexamination of Historic Ocean Perspectives in Japan”

By Toru Yamada

Fall 2014

• Key terms: Japan, Northeast Asia, geography, world history, Maritime Asia, geopolitics, historiography, sociology, social history
• Best for: high school, post-secondary
• Article type: research, pedagogy, curriculum, instruction

Social scientist Toru Yamada challenges well-established narratives of island insularity and “island nation mentality” as ways of understanding island nations generally and Japan specifically. At the core of these “island nation” perspectives in Japan is a focus on ecological factors as determinants of national and cultural characteristics. Yamada’s essay challenges the view that “island mentality” has the social history of Japan. As an alternative perspective, he argues that Japan and other island communities “are not insular but are rather at the crossroads of key international exchanges in Asia and the Pacific” noting that this alternative broadens social scientists’ abilities to interpret these historical events and trajectories as well as social and economic factors.

“History and Memory: The Role of War Memorials in China and Japan”

By David L. Kenley

Spring 2009

• Key terms: China, Northeast Asia, international relations, world history, public memory, war memorials
• Best for: high school, introductory college courses
• Article type: research

Historian David Kenley defines public memory first in the context of popular media and then in the context of memorials and public spaces. He then explores three sites of public memory in China and Japan and discusses the impact of contested narratives projected by these sites on regional and international relations. “Three memorials in particular have influenced public memories in East Asia. The first, the Hiroshima Peace Park, is located in Hiroshima, Japan. The second, the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, is located in Nanjing, China. The third, the Yasukuni Shrine, is located in Tokyo, Japan. These memorials and museums are extremely popular, yet they portray radically different interpretations of World War II for their respective audiences. These divergent memories continue to influence Chinese-Japanese relations to the present day.”