University of California Press Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame: 5 (Asia Pacific Modern)

"Tropics of Savagery" is a groundbreaking study of the figures and tropes of 'savagery' in Japanese colonial culture. Through a rigorous analysis of literary works, ethnographic studies and a variety of other discourses, Robert Thomas Tierney demonstrates how imperial Japan constructed its own identity in relation both to the West and to the people it colonized. By examining the representations of Taiwanese aborigines and indigenous Micronesians in the works of prominent writers, he shows that the trope of the savage undergoes several metamorphoses over the course of Japan's colonial period-violent headhunter to be subjugated, ethnographic other to be studied, happy primitive to be exoticized, and hybrid colonial subject to be assimilated. Similarly, he argues that Japanese writers define themselves in relation to the 'savages' - as conqueror bringing civilization to backward others, as ethnographer studying these same others, as nostalgic romanticist in flight from civilization, and as colonial official promoting assimilation policies. By situating Japan within the broader field of post-colonial studies, Tierney provides both a rich account of the Japanese colonial experience and a stimulating critique of Western-oriented colonial paradigms.