Transpacific Ambitions

As the Japanese Empire extended its reach across Asia and increasingly clashed with the United States in the decades leading up to and during World War II, it also sought closer diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with the nations of Latin America. Pedro Iacobelli presents a new historical analysis of Latin America—with a focus on the Southern Cone countries of Argentina and Chile—in the Japanese imperial imagination, highlighting the strategies employed by Japanese diplomats, companies, and individuals to expand their political and economic influence on the periphery of “America’s backyard.” Taking a transnational approach to the study of the Japanese Empire, Transpacific Ambitions brings to the fore the people, ideas, networks, and forces that propelled the penetration of Japan into Latin American trade markets, shaped Latin American perspectives toward Japan as a potential alternative to US-led Pan-Americanism, and catalyzed anti-Japanese policies such as internment in the United States.