Description
The Dominion and the Rising Sun is the first major study of
Canada’s diplomatic arrival in Japan and, by extension, East
Asia. It examines the political, economic, and cultural relations
forged during this seminal period between the foremost power in Asia
and the young dominion tentatively establishing itself in world
affairs.
The book begins with the opening in 1929 of the Canadian legation in
Tokyo -- Canada’s third such office overseas -- and concludes
with the outbreak of hostilities in 1941. Primarily a diplomatic
history, the book also assesses the impact of traders, interest groups,
and missionaries on Canadian attitudes toward Japan during the interwar
years. More fundamentally, it examines Canada’s diplomatic coming
of age closely, revealing its important Pacific dimension and the
tension between Canada’s commitment to peace and its trade with
an aggressor.
Reviews
A well-written and well-researched book, The Dominion and the Rising Sun will be, for many years, the starting point of future studies on Canada-Japan and Canada-East Asia research.
- Simon Nantais
Meehan has given us an important book that will serve as a benchmark for future historical research related to Canada-Japan relations…The book reminds us of long-forgotten details of Canadian foreign policy…[and] Meehan rightly upbraids traditionalists for the ‘Eurocentric focus of studies of Canada’s inter-war foreign policy.'
- John Price
With its seamless prose and array of interesting details, John Meehan’s The Dominion of the Rising Sun is an accessible piece of scholarship on a previously neglected story within Canadian diplomatic history, Canada’s official relations with Japan from 1929 to 1941.
- Hyung Gu Lynn