Transnational Nazism: Ideology and Culture in German-Japanese Relations, 1919–1936

Transnational Nazism examines Japan's cultural, political, and intellectual relations with Germany from 1919 to 1936. Like other recent works, such as those by Brian Tsui (2018), Maggie Clinton (2017), and this reviewer (2015), the book adds to the scholarship on the transnational entanglement of ideologies of the Right in East Asia. Ricky W. Law takes seriously the Japanese discourse on Nazism, the Third Reich, and Hitler. Consequently, he argues convincingly that the Anti-Comintern Pact (1936) between Germany and Japan (and, later, Italy) was the product of a gradual rapprochement to which several social actors had contributed for over a decade. Giving equal attention to Japanese debates on Germany and Nazism and German debates on Japan, the book represents a major contribution to our understanding of interwar cultural and political relations between Japan and Europe. It is known that Japan borrowed much from Germany after the Meiji Restoration, and Transnational Nazism...