Taiwan Talk: Paul D. Barclay on “Rethinking Imperial Wartime”

Join our Center for Taiwan Studies for a Taiwan Talk with historian Paul D. Barclay (Lafayette College) entitled “Rethinking Imperial Wartime: Anti-Colonial Insurgency in Taiwan as Japanese Military History”!

Barclay considers so-called “small wars” against Taiwanese anti-colonial armed forces as neglected episodes in modern Japanese military history. He will discuss the records of the Bureau of Merit and Awards (shōkunkyoku) to understand how brutal asymmetrical campaigns throughout the empire were branded as exercises in national defense. In Taiwan, the Government General’s system of awards and bonuses compensated Japan’s Taiwanese allies at lower rates than their Japanese comrades-in-arms. The military award system is considered as both an inclusionary and exclusionary device in the making of imperial Japan’s multi-ethnic empire.

Date: Tuesday, April 20th, 2021
Time: 4-5:30 PM PST
Zoom link:http://bit.ly/TaiwanTalks

Paul D. Barclay is Professor and Head of the History Department at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. He is the general editor of the East Asia Image Collection and author of Outcasts of Empire: Japanese Rule on Taiwan’s “Savage Border” 1874-1945 (University of California Press, 2018). He is currently researching Japanese military/police campaigns in Korea, China, Taiwan and the Societ Union from 1894 to 1934 for a project called “Imperial Japan’s Forever Wars.”