Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology

Japan's Empire of Birds explores the political aspects of Japanese explorer-scientists in the transwar period, examining issues of masculinity, race, and social space. It was inspired by geographer Doreen Massey and investigates how these scientists repurposed their aims during Japan's Allied Occupation and the Cold War.

Format: Hardback
Length: 328 pages
Publication date: 21 April 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Japan's Empire of Birds: Aristocrats, Anglo-Americans, and Transwar Ornithology, a transnational history of science, delves into the political aspects of highly mobile Japanese explorer-scientists, known as cosmopolitan gentlemen of science, who traversed between Japanese and British/American spaces during the transwar period from the 1920s to 1950s. Annika A. Culver explores a network of zoologists united by their practice of ornithology and aristocratic status. She delves into issues of masculinity and race related to this amidst the backdrop of imperial Japan's interwar period of peaceful internationalism, the rise of fascism, the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, and war in China and the Pacific. Culver concludes by investigating how these scientists repurposed their aims during Japan's Allied Occupation and the Cold War. Inspired by geographer Doreen Massey, the volume addresses themes such as social space and place in these specific locations, as well as how identities transform to garner social capital and scientific credibility in transnational associations and travel for non-white scientists.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350184930