Seventy years after the Asia-Pacific War ended, Japan is still embroiled in intense controversies with South Korea and China over how to commemorate it. Why did the controversies—known as East Asia’s “history problem”—become so entangled and protracted? Can the history problem ever be resolved, and if so, how? By carefully examining a vast corpse of historical materials, available both in English and Japanese, The History Problem reveals the fundamentally relational nature of the problem, caused by nationalist commemorations in Japan as well as in South Korea and China that focus on what happe ... More

Seventy years after the Asia-Pacific War ended, Japan is still embroiled in intense controversies with South Korea and China over how to commemorate it. Why did the controversies—known as East Asia’s “history problem”—become so entangled and protracted? Can the history problem ever be resolved, and if so, how? By carefully examining a vast corpse of historical materials, available both in English and Japanese, The History Problem reveals the fundamentally relational nature of the problem, caused by nationalist commemorations in Japan as well as in South Korea and China that focus on what happened to co-nationals without sufficient regard for foreign others. At the same time, the book shows that cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity as a frame of reference has developed through a transnational network of NGOs, victims of Japan’s past wrongdoings, and historians and educators. In light of these findings, the book concludes that the governments and citizens in Japan, South Korea, and China have the best chance to resolve the history problem and move toward reconciliation if they mobilize historians’ critical reflections to engage in mutual criticism of nationalist commemorations and reciprocate cosmopolitan commemoration.