Race and Identity: The Culture of Combat in the Pacific War

This article addresses how the Royal Navy intended to defend the British Isles from invasion before the First World War. Revisionist historians have recently suggested that during his first tenure as First Sea Lord, 1904–10, Sir John Fisher conceived and implemented a radical new home-defence strategy. Fisher's ‘flotilla defence’ system assigned a hitherto unprecedented importance to flotilla craft. This was apparently a marked departure from previous practice, which had been to rely upon armoured warships to deter invasion. These claims are not supported by the evidence and have failed to appreciate that flotilla craft had historically formed the foundation of the naval defence of the British Isles. War Plans drafted in early 1909 confirm that before leaving office Fisher remained committed to the blockade of enemy naval forces and that he identified blockade as key to the security of the British Isles.     

太平洋战争爆发前英国远东政策的演变

1937年7月,日本发动了全面侵华战争,企图称霸亚太地区,这与英国维护在华利益、维护华盛顿体系的政策产生了尖锐矛盾。为了对付日本的挑战,英国对日采取了绥靖与争斗相结合,以绥靖为主的对策,对华采取了援助与背弃交互使用的两面政策。     

The archaeology of World War II karst defences in the Pacific

During World War II, the Japanese military, using either their own or civilian labour, excavated tunnels into the limestone of many Pacific islands and modified natural caves for use as command posts, hospitals, combat positions, storage, and shelter. Civilians also used caves to shelter themselves during the war. This article introduces the archaeology of WWII caves and tunnels referred to collectively as ‘karst defences.’ While karst defences exist across the Pacific, little is known about these sites both historically and archaeologically. Based on a study in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and analysis of karst defence construction and function, this article demonstrates that karst defence use extends beyond what has been described in historical accounts. The authors find that the sites in Saipan were used by three different groups of people and identifies distinct Japanese military and civilian sites and evidence of post-war use by the United States.     

有关太平洋战争爆发后日本外交与特工人员在澳门活动的几点补正

值此澳门即将回归之际,笔者据藏在北京图书馆的日本驻澳门总领事馆档案（以下简称“澳档”）揭露日本侵略者的罪行,并纠正中日两国有关论著的不确记载之处。对于抗日战争期间、特别是１９４１年１２月８日太平洋战争爆发后的澳门,我国所出版的有关近代澳门史的著作多语焉不详,如费成康的《澳门四百年》（上海人民出版社,１９８８年版。费氏当时在上海华东师范大学,此前未去过澳门）、黄鸿钊的《澳门史》（商务印书馆版,香港,１９８７年。黄氏为香山县人,时为南京大学副教授）、元邦建及袁桂秀编著的《澳门史略》（中流出版社版,１…     

上海金融业与太平洋战争爆发前上海的外汇市场

抗战爆发后．国民政府调整中的外汇政策和措施仍得以在上海执行。政府银行运用自有外汇、英美政府资金和相关银行先后介入．维持上海汇市。大部分外商银行是官方牌价外汇的争购者和暗市的主角,其市场行为在中美英政府联手推行外汇管理后有所约束。普通华商行庄未能在维持外汇市场方面发挥主动性作用,但以银钱业同业公会为代表的L海金融业仍奉西迂内地的国民政府为惟一合法的中央政府,国民政府的有关监管政策和措施大体上仍能令行禁止,这成为太平洋战争爆发前外汇市场得以维持的重要因素。日伪金融势力则始终是维持上海外汇市场的破坏力量。     

The American war: Italian culture and Hollywood movies on the Second World War

Abstract

This article deals with the reception of American narratives on the Second World War in Italy, assuming the key role that myths and memories about the conflict played in post-war Europe and the importance of transcultural exchanges in the mass-media age. Such narratives were not imported to Italy by official US propaganda, but were mainly conveyed by Hollywood war movies, which were centred on the ideas of the righteousness of the conflict and of the fight between good and evil. The article focuses on a specific sector of the Italian audience, that of critics and film reviewers, who played a key role in interpreting the films and in fostering their acceptance – or refusal. Through the analysis of cinema magazines and newspapers, the research outlines how the reception of such movies was influenced by multiple elements, the different political and ideological allegiances, the cultural gap between elite and popular periodicals, and the interactions with Italian myths and memories about the war. Finally, the article compares the results of the inquiry with the rare sources about the reception of American narratives among a mass audience, and underlines the importance of a transnational approach to the study of cultural issues in contemporary history.     

Gender,race, militarism and remembrance: the everyday geopolitics of the poppy

This article offers a feminist analysis of how British military violence and war are, in part, made possible through everyday embodied and emotional practices of remembrance and forgetting. Focusing on recent iterations of the Royal British Legion’s Annual Poppy Appeal, I explore how the emotionality, and gendered and racial politics of collective mourning provide opportunities for the emergence of ‘communities of feeling’, through which differently gendered and racialised individuals can find their ‘place’ in the national story. I aim to show that in relying on such gendered and racial logics of emotion, the Poppy Appeal invites communities of feeling to remember military sacrifice, whilst forgetting the violence and bloodiness of actual warfare. In so doing, the poppy serves to reinstitute war as an activity in which masculinised, muscular ‘protectors’ necessarily make sacrifices for the feminised ‘protected’. The poppy is thus not only a site for examining the everyday politics of contemporary collective mourning, but its emotional, gendered and racialised foundations and how these work together to animate the geopolitics of war.     

Review Article: Hot War,Cold War,New War

STANLEY KARNOW. Vietnam, A History. New York: Penguin, 1984. Pp. xi, 752. $10.95 (US); GABRIEL KOLKO. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, The United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Pp. xvi, 628. $25.00 (US); TIMOTHY J. LOMPERIS. The War Everyone Lost-and Won: America's Intervention in Vietnam's Twin Struggles. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. Pp. x, 192. $22.50 (US); R.B. SMITH. An International History of the Vietnam War: The Kennedy Strategy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Pp. xii, 429. $25.00 (US); HARRY O. SUMMERS, Jr. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. New York: Dell, 1984. Pp. 288. $3.95 (US).     

日本的国际战略与中日战争的扩大化——论联接中日战争和太平洋战争的一个关键原因

本文旨在考察日本的国际战略在联接中日战争和太平洋战争中所起到的关键作用。分析的重点包括这个国际战略所包含的五个方面:对中国问题的解决方针;对第三国的政策;对九国公约与既有世界秩序的态度;对国际形势的判断;对"中国问题"与"世界问题"相互关系的应对。文章提示:日本最初在国际战略上采取了不刺激第三国的方针,以期将战争限定在中日两国的范围内单独解决。但是,它的实际行为同它的主观意图背道而驰,不自觉地步步推动美国和国际力量走向援华抑日。在深陷困境之后,面对欧洲局势的变化,在对"东亚新秩序"的执着情结和对包括东南亚在内的"大东亚新秩序"的期待心理的推动下,日本决策层在国际战略上与中国殊途同归,确定了"国际性解决"中日战争的方向。随之,其不仅拒绝退出中国,且进一步结盟德意,刻意通过南进收一举多得之效,从而把战争从中国扩大到东南亚和太平洋。在这一过程中,日本的文职官员在很多场合冲到了军人的前面,反映出日本决策背后的深刻背景。