Other Useful Sources for Teaching
This list only includes literary works and primary sources available (or searchable) in English, suitable for teaching in high schools and universities. If you have a recommendation, please contact us.
Teaching Guides and Curated Information
Asia for Educators at Columbia University
Topical units provide images and guiding texts. They focus on Japan in the modern world and early-modern China.
Course Readers of The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
Kirsten Ziomek, The Japanese Empire: Colonial Lives and Postcolonial Struggles in particular.
Bodies and Structures 2.0 by David Ambaras and Kate McDonald
Michele M. Mason and Helen J.S. Lee eds., Reading Colonial Japan: Text, Context, and Critique (Stanford University Press, 2012)
USC Libraries, Unpinning History: Japanese Posters in the Age of Commercialism, Imperialism and Modernism
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, "The ‘Comfort Women’ Issue, Freedom of Speech, and Academic Integrity: A Study Aid," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, 5, no.12.
Southeast Asia Under Japan: Student Generated Resources
Dr. Sandeep Ray's class resources at SUTD. Check out students' interviews, including one by a Japanese student with her grandfather, who was a trainee in Naval Air Corps during the war.
Jonathan Bull and Steven Ivings, "Investigating the Ukishima-maru Incident in Occupied Japan: Survivor Testimonies and Related Documents," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, 19, no.2.
Hoover Institution, Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan.
Images and Movies
The East Asia Image Collection at Lafayette College:
The EAIC documents the history of imperial Japan (1868-1945), its Asian empire (1895-1945) and occupied Japan (1947-52). Images of Taiwan 台湾, Japan 日本, China 中国, Korea 朝鮮, Manchuria 満洲国, and Indonesia are included.
Spring of Korean Peninsula (Ban-do-ui bom) 1941 via Korean Film Archive Youtube channel
"Siam to Korea" (1931) A James A. Fitzpatrick Traveltalk
Japan Search (integrated search engine across many online databases in Japan)
Korean Picture Cards Collection (mostly in Japanese with basic English search)
Korean Church History in Pictures (all in Korean with years)
The Moffett Korea Collection Photograph Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary
Willard D. Straight in Korea (1905) at Cornell University
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea: includes artwork from the colonial period
Sidney D. Gamble Photographs Collection at Duke University: Over 5,000 photographs, primarily of China, 1908-1932
Manchukuo Postcards at Harvard University
North China Railway Archive (mostly in Japanese or Chinese)
Old Pictures of Taiwan at Taiwan Memory Exhibition
Willie Chen's Digest of Historic Places (Taiwan)
Philip S. Jowett ed., China and Japan at War 1937-1945 : Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives (Pen and Sword Military, 2016)
The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 as Seen in Prints and Archives Japan Center for Asian Historical Records. National Archives of Japan. 2014-2021
Imperial Policies, Contemporary Scholarship, and Diplomatic Records
Wm. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, and Ryusaku Tsunoda eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition: 1600 to 2000 (Columbia University Press, 2005)
Antony Best ed., Imperial Japan and the World, 1931-1945 : Critical Concepts in Asian Studies (Routledge, 2010)
Sven Saaler and Christopher W. A. Szpilman eds., Pan Asianism: A Documentary History, 1850-1920 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011)
The Wilson Center Digital Archives (mostly postwar records but includes earlier diplomatic records)
Manchuria and China
Jonathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith, eds. Translating the Occupation: The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931-45 (UBC Press, 2021)
Ito Takeo, Life Along the South Manchurian Railway: The Memoirs of Ito Takeo. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel (Routledge, 1988)
Abe Kōbō, Beasts Head for Home: A Novel. Translated by Richard F. Calichman (Columbia University Press, 2017)
Yokomichi Riichi, Shanghai: A Novel. Translated with a Postscript by Dennis Washburn. (University of Michigan Press, 2001)
Kazuko Kuramoto, Manchurian Legacy: Memoirs of a Japanese Colonialist (Michigan State University Press, 2004)
Miyazaki Tōten, My Thirty-Three Years's Dream: The Autobiography of Miyazaki Toten. Edited by Marius B. Jansen and translated by Eto Shinkichi (Princeton Legacy Library, 1982).
Hong Xiao, The Field of Life and Death. Translated by Howard Goldblat (Cheng & Tsui, 2002)
Yosano Akiko, Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia: A Feminist Poet from Japan Encounters Prewar China. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel (Columbia University Press, 2001)
Yuasa Katsuei, Kannani and Documents of Flames: Two Japanese Colonial Novels. Translated by Mark Driscoll (Duke University Press, 2005)
Taiwan
Japanese Governmental Reports 1900-1918 via Frog in a Well
Missionary Reports and Minutes via Frog in a Well
Travel Guidebooks 1912-1928 via Frog in a Well
Taiwan Related Books Online 1868-1950s via Frog in a Well
Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Michelle Yeh, Ming-ju Fan eds., The Columbia Sourcebook of Literary Taiwan (Columbia University Press, 2014)
Nikky Lin ed., A Taiwanese Literature Reader: Literature from Taiwan (Cambria Press, 2020)
Wu Zhuoliu, Orphan of Asia. Translated by Ioannis Mentzas (Columbia University Press, 2006)
Peng Ming-min, A Taste of Freedom; Memoirs of a Formosan Independence Leader (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972)
Huang Chin-shing, Business as a Vocation: the Autobiography of Wu Ho-su. Translated in introduced by Hoyt Cleveland Tillman (Harvard University Press, 2002)
Korea
Yongho Ch'oe, Peter H. Lee, and Wm. Theodore de Bary eds., Sources of Korean Tradition: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Columbia University Press, 2001)
Korean Independence Outbreak Movement at Columbia University Burke Library
Japanese Governmental Reports 1907-1939 via Frog in a Well
Missionary Reports and Minutes via Frog in a Well
Travel Guidebooks 1912-1928 via Frog in a Well
Richard Kim, Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood (University of California Press, 1970)
Park Wan-suh, Who Ate Up All the Shinga? An Autobiographical Novel (Columbia University Press, 2009)
Hildi Kang, Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Cornell University Press, 2001)
Hyaeweol Choi ed. and trans., New Women in Colonial Korea: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2013)
Kim San and Nym Wales, Song of Arirang: The Life Story of a Korean Rebel (The John Day Company, 1941)
Yuasa Katsuei, Kannani and Documents of Flames: Two Japanese Colonial Novels. Translated by Mark Driscoll (Duke University Press, 2005)
Theodore H. Hughes, ed. Rat Fire : Korean Stories from the Japanese Empire (Cornell University East Asia Program, 2013)
David McCann ed., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry (Columbia University Press, 2004)
Bruce Fulton ed., Modern Korean Fictions: An Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2005)
Peter H. Lee ed., Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology (University of Hawai'i Press, 1990)
National Institute of Korean History English website
National Library of Korea English interface (materials mostly in Korean)
Royal Asiatic Society Korea Journals (1900-2019)
The Moffett Korea Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary
Willard D. Straight in Korea (1905) at Cornell University
Okinawa
Davinder L. Bhowmik and Steve Rabson eds., Islands of Protest: Japanese Literature from Okinawa (University of Hawaii Press, 2016)
Michael S. Molasky and Steve Rabson eds., Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa (University of Hawaii Press, 2001)
Singapore
National Archives of Singapore, Oral History Interviews: Japanese Occupation of Singapore
Gregg Huff and Shinobu Majima ed. and trans., World War II Singapore: The Chōsabu Reports on Syonan (NUS Press, 2018)
Southeast Asia
Primary Sources: History of the Malay World via Frog in a Well
Frank N. Trager, Won Zoon Yoon, Thomas T. Winant ed., Burma: Japanese Military Administration, Selected Documents, 1941-1945 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971)
Harry J. Benda, James K. Irikura and Kōichi Kishi eds., Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents (Yale University Press, 1965)
Anthony Reid and Oki Akira ed., The Japanese Experience in Indonesia: Selected Memoirs of 1942-1945 (Ohio University Press, 1986)
Many personal memoirs by former POWs and Western residents in Southeast Asia have been published. Check the NUS library catalogue tagging "World War 1939-1945 Prisoners".
Wartime Home Front
Japan Air Raids.org: A Bilingual Historical Archive
Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook eds., Japan At War: An Oral History (New Press 1993)
Samuel Hideo Yamashita ed., Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese (University of Hawai'i Press, 2005)
Ian Nish, The Japanese in War and Peace, 1942-48: Selected Documents from a Translator's In-tray (Brill, 2010)