Ian Nish – författare

This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He explains British and American policies in the region as reactive, but concludes that their responses helped to determine which factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the events leading to the Second World War.While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the international path, there were others who tended to side with the army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan joined her allies in making war on the United States and the colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and, with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.

First published in 2001. This is Volume XI of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the Japanese, from 1869 to 1942. It includes sections on the Iwakura period, the Mutsu period, Aoki, Komura, Kato, Ishi, Shidehara, Tanaka, Uchida, Hirota, Konoe and ending with the Matsuoka period in 1941.

Driven by the need to identify, classify and assess western technology and culture together with a desire to advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called 'unequal treaties' - the new Meiji government of 1868 despatched a top-level ministerial team to the west which, in 1872, arrived in the United States. In all, they spent 205 days in America, 122 days in Britain and two months in France, as well as visiting other countries including Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy. Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies, held in Budapest in August 1997 (the year also marking the 125th anniversary of Iwakura's arrival), this volume presents a valuable new overview of the mission as a whole, with the significance and impact of the visit to each country being separately assessed. A supplement to the book looks at several 'post-Iwakura' topics, including a review of the mission's chief chronicler, Kume Kunitake.

First published in 2001. This is Volume XI of the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers eleven part series and focuses on the policies of the Japanese, from 1869 to 1942. It includes sections on the Iwakura period, the Mutsu period, Aoki, Komura, Kato, Ishi, Shidehara, Tanaka, Uchida, Hirota, Konoe and ending with the Matsuoka period in 1941.

Edward Keene argues that the conventional idea of an 'anarchical society' of equal and independent sovereign states is an inadequate description of order in modern world politics. International political and legal order has always been dedicated to two distinct goals: to try to promote the toleration of different ways of life, while advocating the adoption of one specific way, that it labels 'civilization'. The nineteenth-century solution to this contradiction was to restrict the promotion of civilization to the world beyond Europe. That discriminatory way of thinking has now broken down, with the result that a single, global order is supposed to apply to everyone, but opinion is still very much divided as to what the ultimate purpose of this global order should be, and how its political and legal structure should be organised.

This collection of papers, selected from those given at the Anglo-Japanese Conference held in London in 1979, focuses on British and Japanese views of the events leading up to, during and immediately after the Second World War. 'Paired' chapters on the same period, one by a Japanese scholar, one by a British, illustrate the differing perspectives on the same events, and the long period of time covered allows the collection to demonstrate how greatly each country's view of the other changed with the changes in the international situation. The three sections cover the negotiations between Britain and Japan in the long run-up to the war, the activities of the two countries during the conflict, their planning for the post-war Far East and the actual relationship that emerged. Since the papers are grounded in the archives of both countries, the study is a pioneering and fascinating exploration of Anglo-Japanese relations during this period.

Although many volumes have been written on the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy, this book provides the first sustained treatment of the Nixon Doctrine. Enunciated by President Nixon in July 1969, the Nixon Doctrine established the basis not only for the subsequent American withdrawal from Vietnam, but also, more broadly, for US security policy towards the Third World. Along with US-Soviet detente, it stood as one of the two central elements of the Nixon-Kissinger diplomatic strategy.

The strategic importance of Turkey at the outset of the Second World War made it inevitable that the newly-born republic should be the target of covetous glances from every great power. This book provides the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of Turkish diplomacy during the conflict, as the Turks successively fended off pressure from both the Axis and Allied powers to enter the war. The Turkish position of 'active neutrality' was criticised both at the time and subsequently for its 'immorality', but Professor Deringil shows that Turkey's own military and political weakness made any other course of action impractical. Preservation of the nascent Turkish state had to be the guiding principle behind her foreign policy, and this was pursued with considerable tactical acumen by diplomats and strategists still, to some extent, versed in the Ottoman tradition.

Although Parliament is the principal source of authority in the British political system, it is the Cabinet which stands at the pinnacle of government. Yet what actually happens at Cabinet meetings? How are decisions made, particularly in the arena of foreign policy? Such questions have hitherto been largely overlooked by both historians and political scientists. In this book, Dr Christopher Hill presents a detailed case-study of the British government and foreign policy, during the dramatic period from the Munich Conference of 1938 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union three years later. Using extensive archival material, he examines how far the strong personalities of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill respectively were really able to dominate their Cabinets in an area of policy where Prime Ministers have traditionally been supposed to exercise considerable freedom. This analysis concentrates on six decisions that were of key importance in committing Britain to the war which began in September 1939 but which changed so sharply in character in June 1940 with the fall of France. An original study of foreign policymaking at the highest level, this book will be widely read by international relations specialists while historians will welcome the close-textured account of key episodes of this period. It will also reinvigorate debates among political scientists on the nature of Cabinet government.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 has been seen as the turning point of the development of the modern world. Written by a specialist in Japanese diplomacy, this book has been described by the Times Higher Education Supplement as 'diplomatic history at its very best'.

This a study of the Manchurian and Shanghai crises, the first serious confrontation between Japan and the world community. The Manchurian crisis was one of the major international crises of the period between World Wars I and II. For Britain and America, it bred a new distrust of Japanese long-term national objectives. It also brought home to all concerned the weaknesses of the League of Nations and the other instruments of collective security which had been devised to deal with problems of the Pacific Ocean area. The first focus of this study is on how one of the international bodies of the time, the League of Nations, attempted to cope with the emergency that broke out in the east in September 1931. The second focus is on the clash of attitudes in Japanese politics. The period covered by the Manchurian crisis was the point when civilian government in Japan was seriously challenged for the first time in the 20th century. The book offers a fresh account of the crisis, making use of new materials, in Japanese and in English, which have become available and which have been drawn upon for this work. These throw new light on the struggles both within Japan and among League enthusiasts to ensure that Japan, the Asian-state which was at once most stable and economically most successful, should not end up in isolation.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 has been seen as the turning point of the development of the modern world. Written by a specialist in Japanese diplomacy, this book has been described by the Times Higher Education Supplement as 'diplomatic history at its very best'.

Following his earlier account of The Anglo-Japanese Alliance from 1894 t0 1907, Dr Nish's book studies the renewal of the alliance in 1911 and the working relationship between the two countries until the alliance ended in 1923.First published in 1972, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

In this book Professor Nish deals with one of the most important aspects of far eastern politics in the critical period between 1894 and 1907. His object is to demonstrate how Britain and Japan, at first separately and later jointly, reacted to Russian encroachments in China and east Asia; he is concerned also with the policies of the other European powers and of the U.S., to whose hostility towards the Anglo-Japanese alliance after 1905 Britain showed herself increasingly sensitive.First published in 1966, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

Driven by the need to identify, classify and assess western technology and culture together with a desire to advance a dialogue for reviewing the so-called 'unequal treaties' - the new Meiji government of 1868 despatched a top-level ministerial team to the west which, in 1872, arrived in the United States. In all, they spent 205 days in America, 122 days in Britain and two months in France, as well as visiting other countries including Belgium, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Italy. Drawing on the papers given at the triennial conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies, held in Budapest in August 1997 (the year also marking the 125th anniversary of Iwakura's arrival), this volume presents a valuable new overview of the mission as a whole, with the significance and impact of the visit to each country being separately assessed. A supplement to the book looks at several 'post-Iwakura' topics, including a review of the mission's chief chronicler, Kume Kunitake.

In A History of Manchuria, Ian Nish describes the turbulent times which the three Northeastern Provinces of China experienced in the last two centuries. The site of three serious wars in 1894, 1904 and 1919, the territory rarely enjoyed peace though its economy progressed because of the building of arterial railways.

Commissioned by the Japan Society as the companion volume to British Envoys in Japan, 1959-1972 (2004), this collection of essays on a century of official Japanese representation in the United Kingdom completes the history of bilateral diplomatic relations up to the mid-1960s, concluding with Ambassador Ohno Katsumi’s highly successful six-year assignment in 1964. In all, twelve authors, half of whom are Japanese , contribute to the work. In addition to the nineteen biographies, there are essays on the history of the Japanese Embassy buildings in London, an overview of Japanese envoys in Britain between 1862 and 1872 by Sir Hugh Cortazzi, as well as aspects of embassy life which illuminate some of the factors impacting on the life-style of residents in London in former times, including an entertaining personal memoir by Ayako Ishizaka of ‘A Diplomat’s Daughter in the 1930s’. By way of appendix, the volume concludes with a short history of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) up to the present day.

The Allied Occupation of Japan lasted from 2 September 1945 to 28 April 1952 and ushered in an era of unprecedented change for that country. Although British Commonwealth participation played only small part in that story – involving only some 30,000 troops from the various Commonwealth countries compared with the vast numbers of the United States Eighth Army – it nevertheless prompts a discussion, hitherto largely undocumented, concerning its role and relevance. In The British Commonwealth and the Allied Occupation of Japan, Ian Nish who himself was a member of BCOF presents papers by twenty-three authors, partly biographical, partly academic, on subjects grouped in five themes: Origins of the Allied Occupation, Attitudes on the Occupation, Personal Views, the Commonwealth and Peace Negotiations, and the Commonwealth and the Japanese Treaties.