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Podcast: In Conversation: An OUP Podcast
Episode: Cees Heere, "Empire Ascendant: The British World, Race, and the Rise of Japan, 1894-1914" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Description: In 1902, the British government concluded a defensive alliance with Japan, a state that had surprised much of the world with its sudden rise to prominence. For the next two decades, the Anglo-Japanese alliance would hold the balance of power in East Asia, shielding Japan as it cemented its regional position, and allowing Britain to concentrate on meeting the German challenge in Europe. Yet it was also a relationship shaped by its contradictions.Empire Ascendant: The British World, Race, and the Rise of Japan, 1894-1914 (Oxford UP, 2020) examines how officials and commentators across the British imperial system wrestled with the implications of...