ABSTRACT
The “Introduction” begins rather unconventionally by offering readers a sample of what the following chapters have in store. Here readers re-experience both the befuddlement and exhilaration felt by those Japanese civilians and combatants who were secretly mobilized during the early weeks of November 1941 in preparation for the imminent invasion of Southeast Asia. The latter part of the introduction turns academic with a historical summary of the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia from December 1941 to August 1945. This is followed by a section which lays out the exact purview of the book, including a review of the research and historiography on the occupation, emphasizing the significance of the increasing availability of Japanese-language source materials and monographs focusing on the occupier’s views, perceptions and experiences, as well as new questions that have emerged from such archival and research efforts. While the traditional approach to the topic has overwhelmingly been asking what impact the occupation had on decolonization and historical continuity/discontinuity within Southeast Asia itself, the author argues that the newly available sources and research findings have made it possible and important to ask what impact the occupation had on Japan and the dissolution of its empire.
