The 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition

What is it about?

The March-May 1937 Nagoya Pan-Pacific Peace Exhibition was originally planned as a city promotion and branding event, but became a space for conflicting visions for Japan's future. On the one hand, the city and its backers pushed for the continuation of a 1920s-style global regime of free and open trade and exchange. In contrast, the Imperial Japanese Army advocated an increasingly hardline vision of military buildup and economic autarky. These opposing views were both on display at the Exhibition, which I argue encapsulates the conflicts in Japanese society even on the eve of the escalation of war with China.

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Why is it important?

This article makes two major interventions, one theoretical and one historiographical. First, I argue strongly for the utility and necessity of examining local/regional histories on their own merits, and for integrating them into larger historical frameworks. Doing so provides a critical counterbalance to the picture painted by national histories written by, from, and of the center. Second, I demonstrate that at least until war with China escalated in July 1937, there were strong voices in business and government opposing the Japanese military's agenda for an isolated, autarkic bloc economy and the severance of trade and exchange ties with much of the world that this entailed. This nuances the commonsense picture of Japan in the run-up to war as already militaristic and jingoistic.

Perspectives