Awards

• Nominated for John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History 2005
• Nominated for Joseph Levenson Book Prize 2007
• Nominated for Lionel Gelber Prize 2006

Overview

Studies of collaboration have changed how the history of World War II in Europe is written, but for China and Japan this aspect of wartime conduct has remained largely unacknowledged. In a bold new work, Timothy Brook breaks the silence surrounding the sensitive topic of wartime collaboration between the Chinese and their Japanese occupiers. Japan's attack on Shanghai in August 1937 led to the occupation of the Yangtze Delta. In spite of the legendary violence of the assault, Chinese elites throughout the delta came forward to work with the conquerors. Using archives on both sides of the conflict, Brook reconstructs the process of collaboration from Shanghai to Nanking. Collaboration proved to be politically unstable and morally awkward for both sides, provoking tensions that undercut the authority of the occupation state and undermined Japan's long-term prospects for occupying China. This groundbreaking study mirrors the more familiar stories of European collaboration with the Nazis, showing how the Chinese were deeply troubled by their unavoidable cooperation with the occupiers. The comparison provides a point of entry into the difficult but necessary discussion about this long-ignored aspect of the war in the Pacific.

Full Product Details

9780674023987

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Reviews

Timothy Brook has produced a superb book about the vexed problem of collaboration...Of all the studies of collaboration--or those that touch on it--in East Asian studies, Brook's provides us with the most interesting perspective. One of the book's great strengths is the clear and methodical way in which it proceeds through its historical investigation. Brook hews closely to his principal sources and texts, which he both utilizes and interrogates. He cross-examines Chinese and Japanese, collaborative and denunciatory, occupier and resistor texts, often with regard to the same phenomenon, if not the same event or person. Yet Brook is sufficiently a stylist that this procedure rarely lapses into a dry, judicial mode of inquiry. At the same time, the conclusions he draws feel remarkably faithful to his methodology. -- Prasenjit Duara The China Journal

Timothy Brook's superb book is an example of the doing and writing of history at its best...In addition to painting a compelling picture of the multileveled and multidirectional complexity and ambiguity of politics and society under the occupation, Brook's work is studded with notable insights...Brook's writing style is at the same time urbane and engaging. In sum, this is an excellent study and a great read as well.--R. Keith Schoppa American Historical Review (12/01/2005)

Author Information

Timothy Brook is Professor of History at the University of British Columbia.

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