2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Comparative Studies of Perceptions of the Pacific Ocean in the United States from the mid-19th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century
| Project/Area Number |
13610444
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
History of Europe and America
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| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
ENDO Yasuo The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Professor, 大学院・総合文化研究科, 教授 (50194048)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2003
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| Keywords | the Pacific Ocean / Navy / a World Exposition / Nanyo / Alfred T. Mahan / Shiga Shigetaka / Perry / Hawaii |
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| Research Abstract |
I found significant difference between Japanese and American perceptions of the Pacific Ocean in the late 19^<th> -and the early 20^<th>-_century.
Since the 19^<th>-century, Americans have made great efforts to gain a scientific and systematic vision of the Pacific Ocean. The career and achievements of Mathew F. Maury, a lieutenant of the hydrographical department in the American navy was its best example. He contributed to the rise of the ocean logy in the mid-19^<th> century America. Even Alfred T. Mahan, the foremost American naval strategist at the turn of the 20^<th> century, inherited this tradition. His emphasis on Hawaii islands as the strategic pivot for the hegemony of the Pacific Ocean, for instance, derived from his understanding of the dominance of ocean depending on systematic deployment of naval forces. On the other hand, many literary critics and historians in America looked at life and culture of Pacific islands as antitheses against their own civilization. Some people
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even believed that they foresaw the future of mutli-national and multi-ethnic America in the Pacific area. That vision loomed up in their mind especially after the US gained the Philippines and Hawaii islands in 1898.
Japanese started to envision Japan's position in the Pacific only after the Perry's arrival. Soon they molded the geographical concept of "Nanyo (the South Sea Area)", which they thought to be included neither in the West nor in the East. Japan, in their expectation, should become the leader of that area and stood against the invasion of the Euro-American powers. Many of the proponents of Japanese development into the Nanyo, however, did not have any detailed and realistic understanding of geographical and socio-political figure of the Nanyo in the world. This peculiarly barren vision of Nanyo, a Southern part of the Pacific Ocean, found its best expression in Takekoshi Yosaburo's Nangokuki of 1910. In it, Takekoshi hailed the rise of Imperial Japan in the Nanyo and emphasized the importance of Japanization of Nanyo peoples to win competition of civilizations between the East and the West. But he never fully depicted the life and culture of those peoples.
The contrast between Japanese and American perceptions of the Pacific Ocean teaches us that in the Pacific area the contemporaneous experience of peoples of different cultures could easily lead to the distrust of each other. Thus comparative studies of the visions of the Pacific are indispensable for us to gain balanced understanding of multilateral and multi-layered historical experiences of the nations surrounding the Pacific. Less
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