The "Unburnable City" in Japanese Media

What is it about?

This article examines how the Japanese government used the Great Kanto Earthquake and evocative media campaigns to compel Japanese to fire proof their homes in the late 1930s, a response to war with China and the new threat of air raids.

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Why is it important?

This work reveals the how the Home Ministry deftly negotiated the need to mobilize citizens in urban fire-proofing campaigns and dominant discourses of Japanese military superiority in the 1930s, exposing the emotional visual language the Japanese government used to ready the nation for "total war."