Applying Global History to the Study of War: Transnational Narratives of Resilience under Aerial Bombardment

Conference by Sheldon Garon, 2021-22 Paris IAS Fellow, Nissan Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University, organized by the Centre de recherches sur le Japon, as part of the Global Japon(s) series Season 4.

Presentation

How can Japan and the Asia-Pacific theater be productively inserted in a more global history of the world wars?
Sheldon Garon challenges the nation-centered memories of how British or Chinese civilians "stood up" to the aerial bombardment of the Second World War. He argues instead that these narratives of "resilience" had been developing long before 1945--from the time of the First World War and interwar years. They evolved as part of a transnational process of learning in which states and societies monitored and adopted discourses of resilience in other nations.

Global Japan(s) is a working group bringing together historians from the Center for Research on Japan to reflect on the place of Japan in current debates on global history and its issues, with the aim of opening up and enriching the discipline. The project aims to explore the ways in which the history of Japan can contribute to this great debate, by bringing different materials and avenues of reflection, and by proposing new conceptualizations of the past on a global scale.

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