ABSTRACT
Introduction Inoue Hideko and Inoue Masaji each produced a travel narrative of their 1921-22 round-the-world voyage. Hideko began her account with a letter, an invitation from American women to participate in peace activism at the Washington Naval Conference. Masaji, her husband, began his narrative with a preamble on the decline of the West. Exposed to the popularity of Oswald Spengler’s pessimism, Masaji saw postwar diplomacy on the verge of a global race conflict. Introducing their 1937 travel narratives, Hideko marveled at the massive redwood forests of California’s Yosemite Park, while Masaji told a whale story. Three days out of Japan, their ship, the Heian (tranquility) Maru, slammed into an unfortunate whale. As the ship spun back to inspect the bloodstained sea, white seagulls tore flesh from the carcass.2 The contrasts here are telling. Hideko stressed the inclusive, social dimension of diplomacy; Masaji emphasized the submerged race thinking that threatens to destroy it. Hideko celebrated the international scene in its pacific glory; Masaji lamented its intrinsic violence.
