H027 - Peter Duus (1933-2022): Rethinking Empires and Imperialism

    Session will be held in person

    Saturday, March 16, 2024 Saturday, March 16, 2024

    4:00 PM - 5:30 PM 11:00 PM - 12:30 AM 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM PDT 11:00 PM - 12:30 AM UTC

    • Room 204 (Level 2, Convention Center)
This roundtable will explore the contributions of Peter Duus (1933-2022) to the study of Japanese history. Duus, who served as president of the AAS, is most widely recognized for his research on Japan’s colonial empire, especially his 1995 prize-winning book The Abacus and the Sword, but he also pioneered other fields, including the study of political cartoons. We will focus on two themes developed by Duus. First, states are powerful actors, but often less powerful than they seem or claim to be. Thus, Japanese imperialism was managed by the state and the military, but often driven by other actors, including commercial interests and Japanese expatriate communities. Second, Japanese colonialism and imperialism were part of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century international order, not a political pathology much less part of an inevitable Japanese path toward WWII. While we are interested in celebrating Duus’s legacy, we will also engage how his work enabled scholarship that ultimately superseded his own. By exploring the influence of Japanese settlers on colonial policy, for example, Duus opened the door for colonial history as social history, and that, in turn, highlighted the need to explore Korean-language resources, absent from The Abacus and the Sword but central to Uchida’s Brokers of Empire (2011). Duus’s focus on colonialism as a cultural phenomenon anticipated Young’s Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (1999). In similar fashion, although Duus never described his research as “world history” or “transnational history,” his comparative perspective laid the foundation for precisely those interventions (e.g. Ravina To Stand with the Nations of the World (2017), Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar (2021), and Dudden’s Japan's Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power (2004). The research of our five discussants reflects that dual perspective, building on Duus’s insights while seeking to go beyond them. The roundtable format will also offer ample time for audience members to share their perspectives on Duus’ contributions to the field.
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