Pacific Empires

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This seminar explores the frontiers of historical research on imperialism in the Pacific world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The focus is on oceanic (“terraqueous”), comparative, and inter-imperial perspectives to the evolution of two Pacific empires: the United States and Japan. Nineteenth-century topics to be examined will include how European exploration transformed indigenous societies and natural environments, as well as how European and American desire for products such as whale oil and sea-bird droppings (guano), along with Chinese desire for products such as otter pelts and sandalwood, further altered the relationship between humans and the ocean. We will also examine travels, shipping, and migrations and the impact of American and Japanese imperialism on insular and coastal societies. In the years following World War II, the United States brought former Japanese territories under its control and consolidated a new form of empire in the Pacific. Although the readings range widely, we will visit and revisit a few key sites in the history of these two Pacific empires: Okinawa and Hawaii, Taiwan and the Philippines, Japan and the west coast of North America.