Japanese Wartime Zoo Policy The Silent Victims of World War II

by Itoh, Mayumi

• ISBN13: 9780230108943
• ISBN10: 0230108946
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book examines Japanese wartime zoo policy during World War II, analyzing the reasons why the Home Ministry destroyed more than 300 showpiece animals throughout Japan well before U.S. air strikes were anticipated, with international comparisons of the effects of the war on zoos in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. This book demonstrates that the "disposal of dangerous animals" was an integral part of the Japanese government military propaganda to mobilize the whole civilian population into total war, rather than for the ostensible purpose of public safety. These animals were at the mercy of the "march of human folly" and were destroyed mercilessly. This book argues that a study of the effects of war on animals is an essential part of war history, as exemplified by the recent rise in interest in the study of destruction at Baghdad Zoo and Kabul Zoo.

Author Biography

Mayumi Itoh is a former Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  She has also taught at Princeton University and Queens College, City University of New York.  She is the author of Globalization of Japan: Japanese Sakoku Mentality and U.S. Efforts to Open Japan (1998), The Hatoyama Dynasty: Japanese Political Leadership Through the Generations (2003), and Japanese War Orphans in Manchuria: Forgotten Victims of World War II (2010).  She has written extensively on Japanese foreign policy and domestic politics in Acta Slavica Iaponica, Asian Survey, Halcyon, Orbis, Pacific Review, and Popular Culture Review, among others.

Table of Contents

List of Photographs and Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Notes on the Text	p. xiii
List of Abbreviations	p. xv
Map	p. xvi
Photographs	p. xvii
Introduction: "Disposal of Dangerous Animals" as Japan's National Policy	p. 1
Historical Background: Creation of Modern Zoos and Militarism in Japan	p. 15
Zoos in Eastern Japan and World War II	p. 37
Zoos in Western Japan and World War II	p. 57
Zoos in Central Japan and World War II	p. 77
Zoos in Southwestern Japan and Japan's Exterior Territories and World War II	p. 101
Zoos in Europe and World War II	p. 121
Zoos in the United States and World War II	p. 145
Zoos in Japan in the Early Postwar Years	p. 161
Conclusion: Assessment of Japanese Wartime Zoo Policy	p. 185
Appendix	p. 205
Notes	p. 207
Bibliography	p. 229
Index	p. 237
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