Soon after being selected by the Japanese government in 1936 as a committee member to compose Kokutai no Hongi (Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan) and publicly declaring Japan's manifest destiny as hakkō ichiu—eight corners of the world under one Japanese roof—Kuroita Katsumi (1874–1946) suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered. Students and colleagues took over projects he was then working on, such as the sixth centennial of the death of Emperor Go Daigo in 1939, the twenty-sixth centennial of the founding of Japan in 1940, and the completion of the reconstruction of the Imperial Household Museum in 1938. In 1964, nearly two decades after his death, his massive, multi-volume Shintei Zōho Kokushi Taikei (Anthology of Japanese History) was finally completed. With both scholarly rigor and inexhaustible energy, Kuroita publicly promoted and used history to support Japan's modernization and the legitimation of its imperial policies....
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
