Description:
This book retraces the process through which, at the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese went from a racial anomaly to honorary members of the White race. It explores the interpretation of the Japanese race by Western powers, particularly the United States, during Japan's ascension as a great power between 1853 and 1919. Forced to cope with this new element in the Far East, Western nations such as the U.S. had to device a negotiation zone in which they could accommodate the Japanese and negotiate their racial identity. In this book, Tarik Merida, presents a new tool to study this process of negotiation: the Racial Middle Ground.
Brief description: Tarik Merida is Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Tarik completed his PhD in 2019 and has published articles in journals including The Asia-Pacific Journal and Japan Review.
Review Quotes: Tarik Merida brilliantly illustrates how modern Japan encountered the world of White supremacy and negotiated within it to create a "racial middle ground." With a sophisticated theoretical framework and detailed historical research, this provocative study overturns our common understanding of racial dichotomy to provide a new interpretation of how exceptionally complex Japanese racial identity was constructed.--Kotaro Nakano, University of Tokyo