ABSTRACT
As part of our efforts to construct a “generally acceptable historical narrative” in East Asia, this chapter focuses on the most significant obstacle that hinders our project: the “empireness in historical narratives.” The concept of “empireness” is defined as the imagination emerged from the process of an empire’s formation, maintenance, and expansion. Attitudes toward the empireness in the narratives of one’s own country can be roughly divided into two variants: a critical and a boastful attitude. Since a regional history of East Asia requires compatibility with the different national histories of all relevant countries, there is an urgent need to critically reflect on the empireness of our own national histories in order to confront a more general regional history of East Asia.
In previous works, I examined how a number of key issues that are taken for granted in national history have been subsequently depicted in regional history. Key examples include the understanding of modern history as based on an attack-defense dichotomy, empires’ ambitions and imperial expansions, and the historical rhetoric of the Hua-Yi distinction. This chapter will analyze recently published works on East Asian history in China, Korea, and Japan. It seeks to re-examine the boastful and self-assertive glorification of expansion-oriented empireness that, from a self-critical perspective, is viewed as harmful to neighboring countries.
